Boston College

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Department of Theology
THE GLORY OF YAHWEH, NAME THEOLOGY, AND EZEKIEL'S
UNDERSTANDING OF DIVINE PRESENCE
A Dissertation
by
ELIZABETH KECK
submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
May 2011




UMI Number: 3449296






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copyright by ELIZABETH KECK
2011
Abstract
The Glory of Yahweh, Name Theology, and Ezekiel's Understanding of Divine Presence
by Elizabeth Keck
Director: David Vanderhooft
In this study, I contend that Ezekiel's portrait of the Glory represents an
understanding of Yahweh's earthly presence that is markedly different from how the
earthly divine presence is understood in Deuteronomistic Name theology. As formulated
in Deuteronomy and maintained in the Deuteronomistic History, Name theology
understands the divine earthly presence to be restricted to the one place that Yahweh will
choose, which is designated as the Jerusalem Temple. Contrary to traditional scholarly
understanding, this does not divorce Yahweh from his Temple and place him in Heaven
alone, and does not relegate the Temple to symbolic status only. Rather, Name theology
not only affirms the divine presence in the Temple, but views it as the only legitimate
location for that presence. From his position of exile, Ezekiel depicts the Glory with no
exclusive connection to the Temple or the land; the Glory vacates the Temple to allow for
its destruction and appears in Babylonia, where God disputes the Jerusalemites'
contention that the exiles are now far from him (Ezek 11:15-16). I maintain that Ezekiel's
portrait of the Glory finds its inspiration in the Priestly account of the Exodus wanderings
before the Tabernacle's existence; in Priestly tradition, this was the only time the Glory
appeared outside sanctified precincts. These appearances occurred outside Israel, amidst
dislocation, with no physical sanctuary a situation homologous to Ezekiel's own.
Acknowledgments
I wish to express my thanks for the diligent involvement and many valuable contributions
of my dissertation director, David Vanderhooft. From his attentive critiques, suggestions,
and encouragement, this work has benefitted immensely. I wish also to extend my thanks
to my dissertation readers, Katheryn P. Darr and Yonder Gillihan, for their involvement
with my work. Their feedback and their perspectives were of great assistance to me in
making this a more precise, clear, and improved work. My gratitude also goes to the late
Simon Parker, one of my teachers, whose influence on my understanding of, and
appreciation for, the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East is surely greater than he
knew. I thank my family and friends for their stalwart encouragement during my work.
Most of all, I wish to thank my husband, Adam, for his unfailing support, his enthusiasm,
his patience, and his faith in me, all of which was indispensable in the long process of
bringing this endeavor to completion. Special thanks, too, go to our daughter Sophia, who
joyfully arrived in our lives during my doctoral degree, who brings us much happiness,
and whose presence reminds me every day of what is most important in life.
Table of Contents
Chapter One:
The Purpose of This Study. 1
Introduction. 1
The Meaning of the Name Theology. 9
Remarks on Method. 18
The Progression of Chapters in This Study. 26
Chapter Two:
Centralization and the Name Theology 28
The Biblical Account and the Question of the One Chosen Place. 29
The Meaning of the Name Theology and its Primary Role as Stricture. 43
1 Kings 8 and the Temple's Exalted Status 59
Chapter Three:
The Spaces the Glory of God Inhabits 72
A Sketch of the Tabernacle and Some Possible Ramifications for Dating 73
the Priestly Writings.
The Glory of Yahweh and Cult Centralization in the Priestly Writings. 87
Overview of the Location of the Glory in Priestly Texts and its 95
Correspondence to Ezekiel.
The Location of the Glory in Non-Priestly Texts. 99
Chapter Four:
The Role of the Glory of Yahweh in Ezekiel 103
The +51 >&:1: Yahweh as a Sanctuary in Some Measure in Babylonia. 104
The Enthroned God: Ezekiel Sees No Concessions. 120
Ezekiel at Odds with Deuteronomistic Theologies. 133
Beginning All Over Again: The Activity of Yahweh's Glory in Babylonia. 163
Chapter Five:
Concluding Reflections on the Glory of Yahweh in Ezekiel 169
References 177
1
Chapter One
The Purpose of This Study
Introduction.
Readers have long recognized that the Hebrew Bible preserves more than one way
to express the idea of Yahweh's presence in his sanctuary. Deuteronomy and its
companion work the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH), which constitutes Joshua-2 Kings,
1

speak of God's presence in his sanctuary in a different way than do the Priestly writings
of the Pentateuch and the book of the priest-prophet Ezekiel. Deuteronomistic sources
speak primarily of the Name (0>) of Yahweh in connection with his chosen place
(the Temple), while the Priestly sources and Ezekiel speak of his Glory (&($.).
2

However, explanation of these two expressions, including their differences, has been a
matter of greater contention among scholars.
3
I will address some of these perspectives
1 I acknowledge, of course, that the subject of the composition and boundaries of the DtrH is by no means
resolved or static in scholarship. Indeed, even the appellation Deuteronomistic History is challenged
in a very recent collection of essays on the DtrH, which, in part, advocates for Deuteronomistic
Histories and the extension of the currently-defined DtrH to include the Pentateuch in an
Enneateuch. See Markus Witte et al., eds., Die Deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerke: Redaktions-
und Religionsgeschichtliche Perspektiven zur "Deuteronomismus"-Diskussion in Tora und Vorderen
Propheten, BZAW 365 (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2006). The matter of differing theories on the
composition and dating of the DtrH will be noted further in Ch. 2, which discusses the role of
centralization and Name theology in Deuteronomy and, to a lesser extent, Joshua-2 Kings. However,
this study does not attempt to delineate the structure and intricacies of the DtrH.
2 The ways in which the word &($. is employed in Priestly as opposed to non-Priestly texts is noted in
Ch. 3.
3 A representative sampling of scholars includes Wilhelm Caspari, Die Bedeutungen der Wortsippe k-b-d
im Hebraschen (Leipzig:Deichert, 1908); Martin Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, JSOTSupp 15
(Sheffield, Eng: University of Sheffield, 1981); Gerhard von Rad, Deuteronomy; a Commentary
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966); Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961); R. E. Clements, The Book of Deuteronomy, Epworth
Commentaries (Peterborough: Epworth Press, 2001); Ernest W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition,
2
in brief form in this chapter, and with greater detail in the subsequent chapters.
In this study, I wish to advance the idea that Ezekiel's portrait of Yahweh's Glory
represents an understanding of Yahweh's earthly presence that is quite different from how
the earthly divine presence is understood in Deuteronomistic
4
Name theology. Name
theology holds that Yahweh demarcated only one chosen place on Earth for his
presence to dwell, one place to put his Name in special ownership.
5
A classic formulation
of this view is Deut 12:4-14. The passage in full expands upon its central tenet first stated
in vv. 4-5: 0.,'/# '(', ;*$,";># 0(:1'"/#"0# ,. 0.,'/# '(',/ 2. 2(!<5= "#/
'1> =#$( (>;&= (3.>/ 0> (1>"=# 0(!</ 0.,+$>"/.1 (You shall not worship
Yahweh your God so [as the Canaanites do]. Indeed, you shall look only to the place that
American ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967); Samuel L. Terrien, The Elusive Presence: Toward a
New Biblical Theology, Religious Perspectives 26 (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1978); Moshe
Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 1992); Claus
Westermann, Die Herrlichkeit Gottes in der Priesterschrift, Wort-Gebot-Glaube (1970): 227-249;
Roland de Vaux, Le lieu que Yahv a choisi pour y tablir son nom, in Das Ferne und Nahe Wort,
Festschrift L. Rost, ed. Fritz Maass, BZAW 105 (Berlin: Alfred Topelman, 1967), 219-228; S. Dean
McBride, The Deuteronomic Name Theology (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1969); Menahem
Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into Biblical Cult Phenomena and the
Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Eisenbrauns, 1985); Tryggve N. D Mettinger, The
Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies, Coniectanea Biblica 18
(Uppsala, Sweden: CWK Gleerup, 1982); Ian Wilson, Out of the Midst of the Fire: Divine Presence in
Deuteronomy, SBLDS 151 (Atlanta, Ga: Scholars Press, 1995); John F. Kutsko, Between Heaven and
Earth: Divine Presence and Absence in the Book of Ezekiel, Biblical and Judaic Studies 7 (Winona
Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 2000); Sandra L. Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name
Theology: Le"akk n !em ! m in the Bible and the Ancient Near East # ! , BZAW 318 (Berlin: De Gruyter,
2002); most recently, Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
4 In this study, I use the term Deuteronomic to refer to the book of Deuteronomy and the theologies
specifically therein. Such usage does not concurrently imply that a theology in discussion is not found
in Joshua-2 Kings (DtrH), only that the current reference is particularly to Deuteronomy. I use
Deuteronomistic to refer more broadly to texts or concepts inspired by Deuteronomy and also found
in the DtrH.
5 As I discuss at length in Ch. 2, I am in agreement here with the work of Roland de Vaux and Sandra
Richter, who have both argued that the Deuteronom(ist)ic expression to place his name there ( >/ . 2
0> (1> and 0(?/ 0> (1> ) is not a statement concerning the abstract, demythologized nature of
Yahweh's presence, but rather expresses Yahweh's special ownership of his sanctuary, which bears his
name. See de Vaux, Le lieu que Yahv a choisi pour y tablir son nom; Richter, The Deuteronomistic
History and the Name Theology. As I will discuss, to express ownership through the use of the owner's
name on the object or the place owned is not at all unusual in the ancient Near East.
3
Yahweh your God will choose from among all your tribes to place his name there as his
dwelling, and you shall go there).
6
This Deuteronomistic view, known as Name
theology, is unequivocal that the chosen place is the only place not just where Yahweh
will receive sacrifices, but the only place on Earth where his presence chooses to dwell,
and the place through which he will hear and answer prayer (see, e.g., 1 Kgs 8:29-53).
7

As I will elucidate in Chapter Two, Name theology, contrary to how it has been
traditionally understood by many scholars, did not represent a demythologization of the
Temple, its relegation to symbolic status, or the removal of Yahweh's real presence.
Rather, Name theology not only accepted Yahweh's real presence in the Temple (and did
not divorce it from there to place it in heaven only, as many have argued), but crucially
confirmed the Temple's role as the only place Yahweh chooses to manifest his earthly
presence.
The one chosen place serves as the only approved earthly conduit for divine-
human interaction in Deuteronomistic theology. All communication both to and from
God ideally flows in some way through this chosen place that connects Heaven and
Earth, God and human. To be sure, while Ezekiel did anticipate a future restored Temple
(Ezekiel 40-48), the Babylonian conquest and destruction meant the demise of the current
Temple as any Israelite had known it, despite a widespread belief in the Temple's
invulnerability. According to Ezekiel's prophecy, God's presence, as manifested in the
Glory, appears in a foreign land outside any sanctified space, even while the Temple still
stood.
8
There, God informs Ezekiel that he has himself become a sanctuary in some
6 Unless otherwise noted, all translations in this work are my own.
7 For full discussion of this theology, see Ch. 2.
8 As I will elucidate in the final section of Ch. 3, to speak of the Glory outside Israel, and not within
4
measure (Ezek 11:16, discussed in Chapter Four) for the exiled community until the
ideal of a restored physical sanctuary can be realized.
As part of Ezekiel's response to the new and dislocating circumstances that he and
his fellow exiles experienced, I further propose that the prophet understands the Glory's
appearance as the catalyst for a link between the people's current reality and the pre-
Tabernacle wilderness, which is the only other time in the Priestly schema that the Glory
ever appeared outside a sanctified physical structure. This link to a specific period in
Israel's national story signals a beginning all over again,
9
which will place Israel on the
path to its re-creation. The homologous nature of these two periods when the Glory
revealed itself outside a sanctified structure the exile Ezekiel experienced in Babylonia,
and the period in the Sinai wilderness before the Tabernacle's existence may be
described as follows.
The conditions in which Ezekiel (in his visions of the Glory) and the exiles (as
described in Ezek 11:15-16) experience Yahweh outside the land are similar to the only
conditions, for the Priestly tradition, in which the Glory ever appeared unmediated and
sanctified precincts, is relatively common only in non-Priestly texts, particularly within the Psalms and
Isaiah (for examples, see section entitled The Location of the Glory in Non-Priestly Texts in Ch. 3).
The only circumstances within Priestly texts in which the Glory is ever found outside the Tabernacle or
the Jerusalem Temple occur before the Tabernacle had been constructed at Sinai. After the Tabernacle
was built, the Glory never again appears outside its boundaries in Priestly writings.
9 Of course, the existence of the Priestly writings before Ezekiel's time is not a consensus in scholarship.
However, in Ch. 3 and to a lesser extent Ch. 4, I do address the question of the dating of P writings. In
brief, my position is that while P likely continued to develop throughout the Neo-Babylonian period, it
initially existed in some form during the monarchy and certainly crystallized some oral traditions
already extant. However, it is necessary to note that any dating of P whether before, during, or after
the Exile is inherently uncertain and open to interpretation. I am in agreement with John Kutsko when
he observes that the incorporation of P into Israel's life did not necessarily coincide with its literary
formation.... The following is at least a starting point: (1) Ezekiel belonged to a priestly circle prior to
his exile but probably also to a circle that continued within the exilic community; and (2) some of the
traditions that are encountered in their final literary form in the Priestly sources of the Pentateuch were
also available to Ezekiel in some form, oral or written. Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth, 13.
5
outside physically sanctified space. In the Sinai wilderness before the Tabernacle was
constructed, the people were outside the land of Israel, in a condition of impermanence
and dislocation, when there was no extant sanctified structure. This proceeds from the
fact that in the literary progression of the Priestly tradition, such a structure would not
exist until the instructions were given at Sinai and then implemented. Hence, in response
to the people's grumblings, the Glory appears unenclosed in Ex 16:10, where we read,
235$ '#;3 '(', &($. '3'( ;$&1'"/# (37,( /#;?,",3$ =&5"/."/# 2;'# ;$&. ,',(
(And as Aaron commanded all the assembly of Israelites, they faced toward the
wilderness, and look! The Glory of Yahweh appeared in the cloud). The Glory also
appears unenclosed upon the mountain during the entire Sinai theophany. Ezekiel's book
posits that at some future point, God's perfect sanctuary will be built according to new
instructions, and the Glory will dwell within it.
Until that time, in the wake of the Temple's eradication, the Glory in Ezekiel
resumes certain activity that recalls a period hundreds of years earlier in the Priestly
account of the infancy of Israel's nationhood.
10
In that early period without an available
10 With this statement, it is important to reiterate both the textual tradition and the literary time frame in
question within that tradition. A common image that springs to mind when one envisions the
wilderness period is the presence of God guiding the Israelites as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar
fire by night, constantly visible. The textual tradition that concerns us here is the Priestly one, in whose
worldview Ezekiel operates. In the Priestly textual tradition, the Glory does not appear as the constant
pillar of fire and cloud until the Tabernacle is available. At the Tabernacle's completion, the Glory
settles upon it and becomes constantly visible to the wandering Israelites as the cloud and fire, within
the confines of the sacred precinct (Ex 40:34-38). Before the Tabernacle's existence in the Priestly
tradition, the Glory is depicted as only intermittently visible among the people, and indeed is only
recorded appearing twice: once in Ex 16:10 (noted above) in response to a well-defined circumstance,
and then for quite some time upon Sinai to give instructions for the Tabernacle, another well-defined
circumstance. Thus, until the Tabernacle is available as a sacred enclosure, the Glory in the Priestly
tradition appears sporadically, not in constant visibility before the population. When the Tabernacle
becomes available, the Glory takes up constant residence inside it, and from that point on never appears
outside its sacred precinct. As stated above, it is my contention that Ezekiel's presentation of the Glory
in Babylonia is homologous to the conditions in which it functioned in the Priestly tradition before the
existence of the Tabernacle.
6
physical sanctuary, the Glory revealed itself unmediated, and did so intermittently and in
response to specific, well-defined circumstances: responding to the people's complaints
(Ex 16:10) and delivering instructions for the initiation of the cultus (Sinai theophany).
Similarly, Ezekiel's portrayal is one in which the Glory appears and departs at will, not
constantly visible, but seemingly never very far removed.
Ezekiel and the exiled community sought ways to perceive and continue to
worship God far from the homeland.
11
Ezekiel's interest in God's mobility in a situation
of exile is accepted by a majority of scholars. However, I wish to advance the idea that
Ezekiel presents his visions of the Glory in a way that offers the exiles a conception of
earthly divine presence quite different from Deuteronomistic theology, and finds its
inspiration in the Priestly portrayal of the Glory in the wilderness before the Tabernacle's
existence. In other words, Ezekiel articulates a response to the Temple's profanation and
his people's exile that operates with parameters quite different from Deuteronomistic
theology, which restricted God's presence on Earth to one place. For Ezekiel and the
11 With the phrase continue to worship, I do not imply cultic worship in the form of sacrifice. Given his
polemic against high places in Ezekiel 6, there is no indication that Ezekiel would have viewed
sacrifice to Yahweh in Babylonia, without a proper Tabernacle or Temple, as licit. In a recent article, B.
Oded convincingly argues that we have no evidence for Yahwistic cultic sacrifice in Babylonia during
the Exile. See B. Oded, Yet I Have Been to Them +51 >&:1/ in the Countries Where They Have
Gone (Ezekiel 11:16), in Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume -- Studies in the Bible and
the Ancient Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism, ed. Chaim Cohen, Avi Hurvitz, and Shalom
Paul (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004) 103-114.Whether cultic sacrifice to Yahweh obtained in
Babylonia, however, is a matter outside the concern of this dissertation. It does seem clear, however,
that Ezekiel deemed other forms of worship of Yahweh to be licit in Babylonia. If one considers his
communications with God as a form of prayer, then prayer certainly falls into his schema of allowable
worship. Furthermore, it is clear that Ezekiel insists on observing dietary restrictions, for example, in
Babylonia: when God commands that he bake his 0,;5? =%5 over human excrement (Ezek 4:12),
Ezekiel risks defiance of Yahweh when he protests that he has remained ritually clean his entire life
(Ezek 4:14), and does not intend to change that practice in exile. At this, Yahweh relents and allows him
to bake his cake over cow dung. From this, one can infer that upholding purity laws would have been
one licit form of worship in exile. The same might hold true for the elders who consult Ezekiel
repeatedly in the book.
7
exiles, and eventually for those remaining in the land, that place no longer functioned. In
fact, from Ezekiel's perspective, its extensive defilement caused it to cease functioning
even before its destruction; the Glory departs from it in response to its cultic unsuitability.
In the interests of clarity, it must be stated that I do not claim Ezekiel advocates
multiple places for sacrifice; in my view, it seems clear that Ezekiel conceives of a
ritually clean temple as the only legitimate place to offer cultic sacrifices, under the
proper supervision of a ritually clean priest. Indeed, Ezekiel anticipates future conditions
in which an ideal temple may one day thrive in an ideal city named Yahweh is there (
'1> '(',, Ezek 48:35). He does not set aside the concept of an appropriate temple
although he does not overtly name Jerusalem as the location for the future utopian
temple. But Ezekiel's characterization of the Glory insists that God's earthly presence
with the people does not, in their current circumstances, require the existence of a
physical sanctuary much less a geographically fixed one perceived to be enduring.
The distinction between the perfect ideal and the imperfect reality is important to
hold in mind, especially in light of the connecting line that Ezekiel appears to draw
between the Israel starting over in his day, and the ancestral Israel that first emerged,
according to tradition, into the Sinai desert under the guidance of the Glory. Under ideal
conditions, in which the central sanctuary is extant, available, and ritually pure, Ezekiel's
theology of God's Glory poses little functional conflict with Deuteronomistic Name
theology. Under ideal conditions, the two perspectives uphold the same goal: the presence
of God in his Temple, and the people's worship of him there. However, the reality that
Ezekiel and the exiles (and, eventually, even the Jerusalemites) experience is radically
8
different from this ideal. While Ezekiel's response to the harsh new reality need not have
been universal, and while other of his contemporaries might have formulated their own
responses to their dislocation and the Temple's absence, Ezekiel's portrait of the Glory
serves as one attempt to step into the breach. It is at the edge of the breach that Ezekiel's
Glory theology and Deuteronomistic Name theology part ways.
It is worth noting, however, that even under the ideal conditions, the
Deuteronomistic presentation of the one chosen place and Ezekiel's presentation of the
Glory have real differences that go beyond mere terminology differences that become
more pronounced when the ideal conditions cease to function. The prominent difference
is one of emphasis in the characterization of Yahweh's earthly presence. The Name
theology heavily emphasizes Yahweh's special connection with the chosen place,
localizing his earthly presence there in clear terms; this perspective, while not identical
to, is also not dissimilar to Zion theology, in which a popular belief in the essential
invulnerability of Yahweh's city and Temple thrived.
12
In Ezekiel's worldview, however, it
is the Glory's intrinsic mobility over the Earth that is the keystone of his presentation of
divine presence and sovereignty over the current events. For Ezekiel, there is no question
of any status accorded to Jerusalem or the Temple that could stay Yahweh's desertion of
them; the emphasis is not a special connection to one place that Yahweh has chosen, but
is, rather, Yahweh's choice to be present anywhere.
Ezekiel's divergences from Deuteronomistic theology elsewhere in his book
(which I explore in Chapter Four) bolster the position that Ezekiel does not fear
disagreement with Deuteronomistic theologies. Ultimately, Ezekiel's experience of the
12 This will be discussed further in Ch. 2.
9
Glory of God in Babylonia is the brush with which he paints the activity of the divine
presence in a way that operates differently from Name theology. The Temple still exists
in the literary setting of Ezekiel 1 when the Glory initially appears to Ezekiel outside
Israel. However, because of the Temple's extensive defilement in Ezekiel's view, it was
defunct not only to the exiles but even to the people remaining in Jerusalem, long before
it was destroyed. Not long after the first exiles entered Babylonia, the Glory vacated the
Temple (Ezekiel 8-11), and the Temple eventually met its end physically in a way that
simply mirrored its cultic profanation, according to Ezekiel.
In Ezekiel's view, the exiles represent most vitally the Israel before the existence
even of any Tabernacle, to say nothing of a temple.
13
In their own time and place, they
exist in Ezekiel's prophecy as Israel existed when there was no sanctified space to enclose
God's Glory. In Ezekiel's prophecy, the Glory therefore arrives again unmediated by any
physical space, with God becoming the people's sanctuary during the Exile (Ezek
11:16, discussed in Chapter Four), in what appears to be a reference to Israel's beginnings
as a nation.
The Meaning of the Name Theology.
To discover whether and how Ezekiel could have responded to Deuteronomic
Name theology, it is first necessary to analyze the Name formulation itself. This matter is
13 Ezekiel's view of the exiles would not have been a consensus among his people, particularly those
remaining within Israel. Ezekiel himself acknowledges this reality (though only to dispute it) in Ezek
11:15, where we encounter the Jerusalemites' assertion that the exiles have been rejected by Yahweh.
For more on Ezekiel's perspective on the exilic community, see Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Ezekiel as the
Voice of the Exiles and Constructor of Exilic Ideology, Hebrew Union College Annual 76 (2005): 1-
45.
10
discussed at length in Chapter Two, but will receive a shorter overview here as part of the
larger project's groundwork encompassed in this chapter.
For many years scholars have discussed the question of Yahweh's Name in the
Deuteronomistic framework: how it is used, what is its significance, and whether it
indicates a type of revolution in Israelite theology, a break from past understandings of
Yahweh's presence. A representative survey of such scholars and their positions follows
below. To preface that survey, it is useful to note that for some time, the reigning
interpretation was that the Name represents an abstraction of Yahweh -- a kind of
projection of Yahweh meant to deny that the deity himself has an earthly dwelling place,
or indeed has any actual presence on Earth. Such a potential denial was understood to
indicate a new era in the progression of Israelite religion.
Within this framework, Martin Noth asserted that the Temple in Deuteronomistic
thought was a demythologized place divorced from the actual presence of Yahweh, and
considered primarily to be only a house of prayer rather than of traditional sacrifice.
14

This idea lent itself well to the assertion that use of the Name removed Yahweh's real
presence from the Temple. Gerhard von Rad's view of the Name in Deuteronomistic
writings is representative of the interpretation that endured for decades:
But in Deuteronomy a more precise distinction is made between Yahweh and the
sanctuary. The name dwells on earth in the sanctuary; Yahweh himself is in heaven.
Here we have a theologically very striking conception of the name, which is present at
the shrine in almost material form, is regarded almost as a person, and acts as a mediator
between Yahweh and his people. This idea must therefore be understood as a protest
against popular conceptions of the actual presence of Yahweh at the sanctuary.
15
Walther Eichrodt, like von Rad, asserted that Deuteronomistic thought bestowed
14 Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, 94-95.
15 von Rad, Deuteronomy; a Commentary, 90.
11
on the divine Name what he termed a hypostatic character; with this designation,
Eichrodt saw the Name as almost independent from Yahweh himself in Deuteronomistic
thought.
16
Ronald Clements maintained that the Deuteronomists denied that Mount Zion
was Yahweh's chosen dwelling-place in the old mythico-cultic sense, by setting forth the
doctrine that it was Yahweh's name which dwelt there.
17
Ernest Nicholson remarked that
Deuteronomy sought to place a distance between Yahweh and his Temple in an effort to
replace the old crude idea of Yahweh's presence and dwelling at the shrine by a
theologically sublimated idea.
18

Other scholars, while agreeing with the notion that the Name signaled a new
heyday of abstraction in Israelite theology, proposed that the notion originated in North
Israel during the period of the Divided Monarchy, as a way to adjust to the physical
absence of the Jerusalem Temple and formulate a new conception of Yahweh's presence.
Fritz Dumermuth, for example, proposed that the Name theology had originally arisen
at Bethel in North Israel (which he believed to be the Deuteronomic chosen place) shortly
after the dissolution of the United Monarchy. Hence, he says, the Bethel priesthood
attempted to create a substitute, more abstract theology to compensate for the loss of the
Ark to Judah.
19
Samuel Terrien also maintained that the Name theology originated in the
North and indicated a new abstraction of Yahweh's presence; but he alleged that it thrived
at the Shechem cultic center, and after the Assyrian destruction of North Israel, was
16 Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 41.
17 Clements, Deuteronomy and the Jerusalem Cult Tradition, 304.
18 Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition, 55-56.
19 Fritz Dumermuth, Zur deuteronomischen Kulttheologie und ihren Voraussetzungen, Zeitschrift fr
die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 70, no. 1-2 (1958): 59-98.
12
transported south to Jerusalem and played a role in King Josiah's reforms there.
20

More recently, perhaps the staunchest defense of the view that the Name
formulation represents a break with Israel's religious past can be found in the work of
Moshe Weinfeld. Weinfeld sees both cult centralization and the Name theology as
turning points in Israelite religion introduced by Deuteronomic thought. Weinfeld
writes, The elimination of the provincial cult permitted the transformation of Israel's
religion into a more abstract religion, one that minimized external expression....the
expression 'to cause his name to dwell (l"kn "mw)' reflects a new theological conception
of the Deity, and....is intended to combat the ancient popular belief that the Deity actually
dwelled within the Sanctuary.
21
For Weinfeld, the revolutionary development of
Deuteronomic Name theology served as a corrective to older conceptions, which in
Weinfeld's view included the Glory as depicted in the Priestly writings. Tryggve
Mettinger has argued that we should understand the Name as a way to distance Yahweh's
true presence from his Temple. Unlike Weinfeld, though, Mettinger contends that the
Name theology was a development that arose after the Temple's destruction, in the Neo-
Babylonian era, as a way to come to terms with the Temple's loss and the apparent
mystery of Yahweh's presence. Further discussion and ultimately my own rebuttal of
these views are presented in Chapter Two, where I evaluate some representative evidence
involving Deuteronomistic phrasing, allusions to, and presentations of the idea of the
divine presence.
20 Terrien, The Elusive Presence, 199.
21 Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor
Bible 5 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 37; idem, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 193.
Similarly Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation,
JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), xiii.
13
Roland de Vaux, however, pioneered what now seems to be the correct
understanding of 0> (1> 2.>/, an understanding that reflects the sense of "establishing"
or "placing" one's name simply as a sign of one's possession
22
in the way that an
inscription makes ownership clear to others. The purpose of the Deuteronomistic use of
this phrase would then be essentially to emphasize Yahweh's own place of worship over
against those of other gods, whose names were reportedly on their own places
23
the
infamous high places (=(1$) so reviled in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomistic
literature. To this end, Deuteronomy 12:3 tells us: "=# 0=;$>( 0=*$)1"=# 0=9=3(
0(:1'"21 01>"=# 0=&$#( 2(5&%= 0','/# ,/,47( >#$ 2(7;?= 0',;>#( 0=$91
#('' Tear down their altars and smash their pillars; you shall burn their asherim in the
fire and hew down the images of their gods; annihilate their name from every such
sanctuary [emphasis mine].
By repeatedly and unequivocally stating that Yahweh has chosen a certain place
"to put his name there" ( >/ . 0> (1> 2 or 0> (1> 0(?/), i.e. to claim as his own
singular place to dwell, Deuteronomy explicitly condemns what it perceives as the many
countryside high places, since Yahweh did not place his name upon them. Indeed,
Deuteronomy 12:3 overtly states that the names of other gods were upon those
places/sanctuaries.
24
The implication is one of ownership.
22 de Vaux, Le lieu que Yahv a choisi pour y tablir son nom, 221.
23 For more on the presence of names upon various markers and monuments in the broader ancient Near
East, see Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology; idem, The Place of the Name
in Deuteronomy, Vetus Testamentum 57, no. 3 (2007): 346; Kathryn E. Slanski, The Babylonian
Entitlement nars (kudurrus): A Study in Their Form and Function, American Schools of Oriental
Research Books 9 (Boston, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2003).
24 The word here used for place (0(:1) also appears in the Hebrew Bible as a reference to a specifically
cultic site, a shrine. See, for example, Gen 12:6 and Gen 28:11; also 1 Chr 16:27, in which the
Chronicler refers to the 0(:1 of Yahweh in his adaptation of Psalm 96, which uses >&:1 sanctuary
in the same passage the Chronicler is citing. Thus we see 0(:1 used as a synonym for >&:1. See
14
If this is the meaning of the phrase, of course, the Name formula would simply
declare Yahweh's possession without attempting to revolutionize the nature of his
presence at his sanctuary. The Name theology, with its insistence on this one specialized
locus for Yahweh's presence, can thus be best understood as a stricture for the well-
known Deuteronomic desire to centralize all worship of Yahweh, including prayer. The
Amarna Letters were de Vaux's primary inspiration for his understanding of the Name
formula. For example, EA 287:60-63 records the Jerusalem king's statement to the
Pharaoh: "As the king has placed his name in Jerusalem forever (amur "arri "akan "um"u
ina m t ! urusalim ana d ri" ! ), he cannot abandon it the land of Jerusalem." Again in EA
288:5-7 we read, "Behold the king, my lord, has placed his name (amur "arri b lia "akan #
"um"u) at the rising of the sun and at the setting of the sun."
25

The statement of special ownership that the Name theology sets forth says nothing
by itself about the nature of Yahweh's presence or non-presence at the
Temple.
26
However, since the presence of divinities in temples as well as in the heavens
was indisputably a staple belief in the ancient Near East,
27
one should first approach the
David Vanderhooft, Dwelling Beneath the Sacred Place: A Proposal for Reading 2 Samuel 7:10, in
Journal of Biblical Literature 118:4 (1999) 628. Also see Vanderhoofts discussion of uses of 0(:1 as
shrine outside the Hebrew Bible, in Vanderhooft, Dwelling Beneath the Sacred Place, 629-630.
This evidence further supports the use of 0(:1 in Deut 12:3 as referring specifically to the cultic
shrines of the other gods, whose names are there (just as Yahwehs name is on his own cultic site).
On the meaning of 0(:1 in this passage, see also J. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996) 119.
25 EA 287:60-63, EA 288:5-7; trans. William Moran, ed., The Amarna Letters (Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1992) 328, 331; Akkadian in J.A. Knudzton, ed., Die el-Amarna-Tafeln (2
vols.; Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1915) 866-869.
26 So also Benjamin Sommer, in his discussion of the phrase to place the name. However, Sommer
follows Weinfeld in arguing that although the Name formulation itself does not indicate the mode of
Yahweh's presence, Deuteronomistic theology still removes Yahweh from his Temple and relocates him
only in Heaven. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, 66.
27 See Ch. 2.
15
Name formula in Deuteronomistic texts from that foundation. Starting from such a
foundation, to state then that Deuteronomistic theology divorces Yahweh from his
Temple by removing him from it and relocating him only in Heaven requires far more
evidence than merely the Name formula as a phrase. If we accept the phrase as signaling
ownership, then proving that Name theology represents a revolutionary
demythologization requires far weightier evidence than actually exists. Such evidence
would have to show that Deuteronomistic texts espoused a radically different view of the
nature and function of temples than had ever been conceived in the ancient Near East.
Such evidence would need to show that Deuteronomistic texts abandoned traditional
language and concepts describing Yahweh's relationship to his sanctuary and its
appointments, such as the Ark. As we shall discuss in Chapter Two, such is not the case.
Roland de Vaux's theory was insightful and a break with scholarly opinion at the
time, but it remained undeveloped in the detail necessary to effect a large change in the
way scholars would think of the Name theology. In her recent work, Sandra Richter
develops de Vaux's insight in detail, building also upon the work of S. Dean
McBride.
28
Richter analyzes the phrase 0> (1> 2.>/ as employed not only in the Bible
but also in its cognate formulations in the broader Near East, and determines its nature as
an Akkadian idiom signaling ownership which was then appropriated into
Hebrew.
29
Richter looks at the link between the Hebrew 0> (1> 2.>/ and the Akkadian
phrase "uma "ak nu, ! to place the name, which share the etymological cognate "kn.
Richter's thorough analysis will not be reproduced in this chapter, as it is discussed with
28 McBride, The Deuteronomic Name Theology.
29 See Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology.
16
more detail in Chapter Two.
30
It is with this understanding of the Name theology a
formulation of ownership for the one location of Yahweh's presence and a stricture for
centralized worship in all forms that I proceed in this study.
Against the backdrop of this prominent biblical school of thought, I will examine
how Ezekiel's depiction of the Glory is emblematic of his own understanding of the
divine presence on Earth, from a perspective as radically dislocating as exile. Such an
examination will address some long-standing questions, such as whether Ezekiel's
depiction of the Glory indicates a perceived dethronement of Yahweh that is, a new
era in which Ezekiel believed it inappropriate to refer to Yahweh as Yahweh Sabaoth
(Lord of Hosts) after the Temple's destruction.
31
This position has been argued most
extensively by Tryggve Mettinger,
32
though it is not exclusive to him, and it is a position
which I challenge in Chapter Four. This disagreement arises in the context of my
proposed solution to what Ezekiel intended in his visions of the Glory, which in my view
did not include any concessions relating to Yahweh's enthronement. Other matters
addressed in the course of this examination include the way in which the Glory with
particular attention to the spaces the Glory inhabits is described in Priestly and non-
Priestly contexts, and where Ezekiel falls along this spectrum of the way the Glory is
described.
30 For a recent and brief critique of Richter's conclusions with respect to Deuteronomistic Name theology
(though not with respect to her linguistic analysis and survey of ancient Near Eastern usage), see
Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, 218-219, n. 47.
31 For Mettinger, Ezekiel stands in a transition period, the beginning of a time when other Judeans would
also abandon Sabaoth terminology. Among those abandoning Sabaoth, Mettinger contends, are the
Deuteronomistic and Priestly schools, whose works in his view were thoroughly products of the Exile
and influenced by the loss of the Temple. However, the designation Yahweh Sabaoth clearly did not
pose a problem for all exilic and postexilic writers. The designation is found, for example, in Is 44:6;
45:13; 47:4; 48:2; 51:15; 54:5, as well as numerous instances in the books of Haggai and Zechariah.
32 See Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth.
17
These endeavors do not encompass an investigation of the Glory's origin and
history throughout the course of Israelite religion, or a detailed look at the Glory's
similarities or dissimilarities to other Near Eastern concepts. Rather, we will consider
what earthly spaces the Glory inhabits in Priestly, non-Priestly, and eventually Ezekielian
writings, and under what circumstances and conditions (if any) the Glory dwells in those
spaces. As a result of such considerations, we will discuss the Tabernacle and its function
with respect to the Glory, as well as the question of centralization of worship.
Most of these questions in turn have at least a peripheral relationship to questions
of dating whether of text or tradition and thus I will also give a degree of attention to
the matter of dating. However, it must be emphasized that the task of firmly dating the
Priestly writings is not the goal of this work. For reasons which appear as part of my
discussion in Chapter Three, it is my position that at least some of these Priestly writings
and traditions predate the Babylonian Exile. There is, however, a lack of consensus on
this issue, which I address in Chapter Three.
Ultimately, the approach summarized by Baruch Levine may be the most
judicious way to consider the dating of the Priestly work. Levine remarks that P is a
source that most probably took shape over a protracted period of time, beginning in the
late preexilic period; it preserved some quite early material and continued to develop
during the postexilic period.
33
While exegetes can certainly harbor differing positions on
how much of P existed at a specific time, I would posit that to adopt a much more
dogmatic position risks pitfalls greater than those involved with granting P a large
33 Baruch A Levine, Numbers 1-20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible
4 (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 104.
18
temporal spectrum for its finalization. Fortunately for our purposes, the central question
of this thesis does not rely on the final crystallization of the Priestly work either before or
after the Babylonian conquest.
Remarks on Method.
When it comes to how much of Ezekiel's book was authored by the original
Ezekiel, scholarship over the last century began with the extreme position that Ezekiel is
responsible for almost nothing in his book, due to the interference of allegedly less
inspired redactors whose contributions must be peeled away. In the first part of the
twentieth century, G. Hlscher initiated what would become for a time
34
the prevalent
method of studying Ezekiel's book: he advocated uncovering Ezekiel's original work
beneath the work of later shapers of the text, who in Hlscher's view obscured the
prophet's true message.
35

This approach has now lost momentum in scholarship. A potential problem with
the endeavor to uncover the writer's original words is that any such alleged original
words, as distinguished from later additions or redactions, can become a mirror for how
a modern scholar thinks the text should have looked. Another potential problem with
such an endeavor is that any work accomplished by a later contributor to the text a
member of a prophet's following, perhaps can be ranked secondary in importance, or
34 For a survey of some of these approaches in the style of Hlscher, see Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1: A
Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 1-24, trans. Ronald Clements, Hermeneia
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 5-8; Bernhard Lang, Ezechiel: Der Prophet und das Buch
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981), 2-18.
35 Gustav Hlscher, Hesekiel, der Dichter und das Buch, BZAW 39 (Berlin: Topelmann, 1924). Hlscher
had previously, in less developed form, also stated this position in his work, Die Profeten (Leipzig:
Hinrichs, 1914).
19
even deemed a distortion. For example, Hlscher advocates freeing the poetry of Ezekiel
from the dry prosaic pattern in which the redaction has woven his poems....
36
With this
statement, for example, one can detect a pre-existing expectation that prophetic words
must always take the form of poetry. This is to say nothing of the fact that we must
stretch our minds far indeed in order to deem Ezekiel's rich and often shockingly vivid
prose dry.
More disturbing is Hlscher's statement immediately following. He posits that
once we accept only the book's poetry as Ezekiel's genuine prophetic word, then he is no
longer the stiff priestly writer and pathfinder of a legalistic and ritualistic Judaism, for
which he has been held, but a genuine prophet of Jewish antiquity....
37
With this
statement, the sound of anti-Judaism rings distinct. This may be an unconscious facet of
Hlscher's historical-social context, but it is an intrusion upon Ezekiel and his world.
In response, Walther Zimmerli although certainly engaged in the
contemporaneous diachronic approach that sought to determine authentic material
made a conscious effort to exercise more restraint when applying the surgeon's knife to
Ezekiel's book than had his predecessors. Zimmerli employs form criticism and traditio-
historical criticism in an attempt to perceive the material lying behind the final form of a
text. He argues for the presence of an original prophetic core, not limited to poetry, which
was later shaped and augmented by members of Ezekiel's school, his prophetic heirs.
Zimmerli remarks that the picture Hlscher paints of Ezekiel's book is only gained at the
price of a radical reduction of the present material in the book of Ezekiel....Of the total of
36 Hlscher, Hesekiel, der Dichter und das Buch, 5-6; cited in Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 5
37 Ibid.
20
1273 verses in the book only 144 at the maximum, either whole or in part, are recognized
as genuine.
38

Following in the vein of Hlscher was William Irwin.
39
Based on an analysis of
Ezekiel 15 in which he thought a discrepancy existed between parable (vv. 1-5) and
accompanying interpretation (vv. 6-8), Irwin then applied the criteria gained from that
particular analysis to distinguish the genuine Ezekielian words throughout the rest of
the book which amounted to 251 verses. Zimmerli found Irwin's method to be less
convincing than Hlscher's.
40
Perhaps most extreme are critiques declaring Ezekiel's
entire book to be a pseudepigraph dating to the Persian or even Hellenistic period, as we
find for instance in the work of C.C. Torrey.
41
Others, such as James Smith, made equally
extreme claims denying Ezekiel any authorship; Smith asserted the book was written by a
North Israelite after the fall of the Northern Kingdom, and was later made to appear the
work of a Judean exile by a redactor.
42

Georg Fohrer responded to such previous scholarship with a more cautious
approach,
43
though he still deemed about a third of the extant book of Ezekiel
inauthentic. Fohrer thought that while we should not simply assume the book existed
from its inception exactly in its current form, its interpretation should nonetheless begin
by taking seriously the book's own statements as to its authorship, date, and provenance.
38 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 5.
39 William Irwin, The Problem of Ezekiel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1943).
40 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 5.
41 Charles Cutler Torrey, Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Original Prophecy (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1930=New York: KTAV, 1970).
42 James Smith, The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel:A New Interpretation (London: SPCK Press, 1931).
43 Georg Fohrer, Die Hauptprobleme des Buches Ezechiel (Berlin: Topelmann, 1952). C.G. Howie also
sought to support the book of Ezekiel's own statements regarding its authorship and provenance. Carl G.
Howie, The Date and Composition of Ezekiel, JBL Monograph Series 4 (Philadelphia: Society of
Biblical Literature, 1950).
21
The commentary of Walther Eichrodt followed suit.
44
Indeed, it is a fact that some of
Ezekiel's oracles against the nations did not unfold in the manner the book describes.
Even if a reader prefers to interpret such oracles in a non-literal, spiritualized manner, the
fact remains that it would be strange indeed had they been composed significantly after
the the exilic time frame in which the book sets itself, given their ostensible lack of
fulfillment. At the time that Zimmerli wrote his commentary, he observed that the
negative criticism of the book of Ezekiel's own claims has gone too far, and that much of
the prior mode of criticism of Ezekiel qualified as unrestrained hypercriticism and its
unproved new reconstructions.
45
Moshe Greenberg, with whom I share many concerns about any approach that
tries to construct what a text should have been before any accretions, offers the
following critique amid his larger criticism of the issue.
46
His comments represent a shift
of perspective which also influences my own approach to Ezekiel. In an objection with
which I sympathize, Greenberg observes:
A universal prejudice of modern biblical criticism is the assumption of original
simplicity. A passage of complex structure, or one containing repetition, or skewing a
previously used figure is, on these grounds, suspect of being inauthentic. Another
widespread prejudice equates authenticity with topical or thematic uniformity. A
temporal vista that progresses from present, to penultimate, to ultimate time is considered
an artificial result of successive additions to a single-time oracle. Doom oracles that end
with a glimpse of a better future are declared composites on the ground of psychological
improbability. Such prejudices are simply a prioris, an array of unproved (and
unprovable) modern assumptions and conventions that confirm themselves through the
results obtained by forcing them on the text and altering, reducing, and reordering it
44 Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel: A Commentary, trans. Cosslett Quin, The Old Testament Library
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970).
45 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 7.
46 For a succinct comparison between the holistic approach of Greenberg and the Ezekiel school
approach of Zimmerli, see Jon Levenson, Ezekiel in the Perspective of Two Commentaries,
Interpretation 38 (1984): 210-217. Quite apt is Levenson's observation that Whereas Zimmerli sees the
book of Ezekiel as a puzzle which the exegete must put into an intelligible order, Moshe Greenberg sees
it as a subtle work of art and the exegete's task as the demonstration of its intelligibility. Levenson,
"Ezekiel in the Perspective of Two Commentaries," 213.
22
accordingly.
47
In the absence of strong text-critical evidence, we should be cautious not to
sacrifice the complexity of literary expression to what Jon Levenson aptly calls the
theory of the brainless redactor.
48
Yet while Greenberg's approach, which he calls
holistic, differs from the classical diachronic criticism exemplified by Hlscher, it
also differs from some synchronic approaches that deny any post-authorial editor's
work. Greenberg cannot be accused of uncritically accepting that every word in Ezekiel's
book must have stemmed directly from the prophet himself. However, he approaches the
possibility of ancient editorial work not as detritus to be isolated and then swept away,
but as a contribution not necessarily out of sync with the prophet's own work. He remarks
that Ezekiel's book, when taken on its own terms by one willing to engage its world
without imposition, reveals that a coherent world of vision is emerging, contemporary
with the sixth-century prophet and decisively shaped by him, if not the very words of
Ezekiel himself.
49

Indeed, Greenberg does not seek to deny evidence of secondary workmanship, as
long as such evidence meets stringent criteria that are as immune as possible to the
impositions of preexisting modern Western expectations. Greenberg suggests three
47 Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible
22 (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1983), 20.
48 In the context of exploring the Priestly connection between revering the Tabernacle and observing the
Sabbath, Levenson observes of the medieval rabbis: Lacking the theory of the brainless redactor which
can be invoked to explain away any inconcinnity, they sought to learn why the sabbatical ordinances
twice interrupt the material about the construction of the Tabernacle (Exod. 31:12-17, 35:1-3). Jon D.
Levenson, The Temple and the World, Journal of Religion 64, no. 3 (July 1984): 290. On that
question, Levenson himself concludes: The two institutions, each a memorial and, more than that, an
actualization of the aboriginal creative act, are woven together not in a purposeless, mindless redaction
but in a profound and unitive theological statement. Ibid., 288.
49 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 27.
23
conditions under which it may be appropriate to determine a later redaction in a way that
does not involve a priori assumptions: 1) historical anachronism; 2) syntactical elements
causing incoherence not explainable by ancient literary habit or textual corruption; 3)
contradiction where the two contradictory elements are close to each other and cannot be
explained on rhetorical grounds.
50
I agree with Greenberg that details and elements of the
design of Ezekiel's book disclose themselves to the patient and receptive reader who
divests himself of preconceptions regarding what an ancient prophet should have said and
how he should have said it. A consistent trend of thought expressed in a distinctive style
has emerged, giving the impression of an individual mind of powerful and passionate
proclivities.
51
Daniel Block, in his commentary on Ezekiel, appears to follow in the footsteps of
Greenberg in terms of his reaction against the older style of criticism, which he labels a
scissors-and-paste approach.
52
Yet Block, too, does not rule out the existence of some
editorial touch to the final form of Ezekiel; he simply considers its existence to be much
less radical than many of the classical commentators. Block advocates that Ezekiel
himself, as primary author, may have returned to portions of his own work to collate his
prophecies, correlate oracles with catchwords and phrases, and the like.
53
Block notes that
this does not rule out later editorial clarifications, such as Ezekiel 1:2-3. In a footnote
to this statement, Block admits that the scenario he describes of the genesis of Ezekiel's
50 See Moshe Greenberg, What are Valid Criteria for Determining Inauthentic Matter in Ezekiel?, in
Ezekiel and His Book: Textual and Literary Criticism and Their Interrelation (Leuven: Uitgeverij
Peeters, 1986), 123-135.
51 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 26.
52 Daniel Isaac Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1-24, The New International Commentary on the
Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 20.
53 Ibid.
24
book is admittedly speculative, but no more so than the elaborate evolutionary and often
contradictory schemes proposed by those who dissect the text into numerous layers of
tradition.
54
With this statement, Block seems not to reject text-critical or redaction-
critical enterprises per se, but seems rather to caution against some of the extreme
methodologies discussed above.
My project in these pages is focused explicitly upon what Ezekiel may be
communicating with his visions of God's Glory, and how that could be a response to a
certain element within Deuteronomic theology. As such, this project takes primarily a
theological
55
and literary approach to Ezekiel, rather than one that seeks to construct the
original form of a text or to debate redactions. It is certainly not my position that
editorial work is absent Ezekiel; but, with Greenberg, I do not see evidence of such
editorial work so distinctive from Ezekiel himself that we must presume clearly
differing theologies between Ezekiel and any possible redactor. I do not imply with this
statement that we should assume every word in Ezekiel's book originates with the prophet
himself; however, I do proceed with an essentially synchronic approach toward the role
of the Glory in Ezekiel.
Thus I largely adopt a method close in kinship to Greenberg's holistic one. In
her commentary on Ezekiel,
56
Katheryn Darr adopts an approach also inspired by
Greenberg's, but with the added dimension of reader-response criticism.
57
Darr observes
54 Ibid., 21, fn 27.
55 With the term theological, I intend what may have been the perspective(s) of the ancient Israelite
writers under discussion, not any contemporary theology in particular.
56 Katheryn Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, in The New Interpreter's Bible: A Commentary in Twelve
Volumes, NIB 6 (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), 1073-1607.
57 This reader-response criticism, adapted to an ancient Israelite exilic context, follows the work of John
A. Darr, On Character Building: The Reader and the Rhetoric of Characterization in Luke-Acts,
Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992).
25
that recent scholarship displays considerable interest in redactors as gifted literary artists
and theologians in their own right.
58
In this context, Darr goes on to state that while she
values the findings of diachronic analysis, she employs a reader-response criticism which
focuses on how the implied contemporary audience of Ezekiel would have heard or read
the book. Such an audience, of course, would not have taken part in historical-critical
approaches or even, of course, modern literary-critical approaches -- which inevitably
were created with modern literature in mind.
By focusing on the likely response of the ancient hearer/reader, reader-response
criticism encompasses the historical-critical approach in a certain sense, in that
knowledge of the historical-cultural context contemporaneous to the text is necessary to
discover how the ancient reader would have understood that text. Yet since the focus is on
the ancient reader, redaction criticism necessarily plays a much smaller roll than in
classical approaches such as Zimmerli's. Darr's approach also differs somewhat from
Greenberg's, as it focuses not only upon what is read, but also upon the reading process
itself.
59
Darr further notes that the reader-oriented method approaches biblical
books....as potentially coherent literary works, rather than simply as quarries for historical
data.
60
While I do not employ reader-response criticism in this work, I do sympathize
with its primary tenets.
My own method can be described as a blend of historical, traditio-critical, and
literary-critical approaches. For me this arises naturally from the conviction that, as Darr
also advocates, historical-critical approaches and literary criticism are not of necessity
58 Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1094.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
26
antithetical....Some literary-critical approaches, including my own, rely upon historical-
critical discoveries. Such reliance is necessary when examining the book of Ezekiel, for,
as noted above, it presents as a carefully structured literary work anchored in historical
events.
61

The Progression of the Chapters in this Study.
Chapter Two will discuss the centralization of worship to one chosen locale in
Deuteronomy and Deuteronomistic literature. The chapter will examine the centralizing
ideology in Deuteronomistic literature, particularly with respect to the manner in which
the Deuteronomistic writers employ Name theology to express their goal of centralized
worship. As part of this examination of Name theology, I will investigate the nature of
God's presence at the Temple in Deuteronomistic thought, particularly whether it is a
real presence or merely a symbolic abstraction that visualizes God solely in the
heavens. In the process, we will note the potential ramifications arising from the strictly
demarcated and centralized earthly divine presence in Deuteronomistic thought.
Chapter Three will consider the ways in which the Priestly and, to a lesser extent,
non-Priestly texts of the Hebrew Bible imagine the Glory of Yahweh in terms of the
spaces the Glory inhabits on Earth, including to what extent such spaces are sanctified
and mediated. These investigations will allow us to view Ezekiel's presentation of the
Glory (and thus the presence) of Yahweh against the background of other presentations of
the Glory. The discussion will, as part of its focus, examine the question of cult
centralization and the Tabernacle in the Priestly texts. Attention will also be given to the
61 Ibid., 1090.
27
manner of the Glory's dwelling in the Tabernacle and the attendant question of Yahweh's
enthronement. Such an exploration will in turn entail some preliminary consideration
of the elusive dating of the Priestly work, although it must again be noted that it is not the
purpose of this work to resolve such dating, a matter which might always remain
inconclusive.
Chapter Four will explore the significance and the purpose of Ezekiel's particular
portrayal of the Glory of God. As part of this process, we will consider matters such as
God's declaration in Ezekiel 11:16 that he will be a sanctuary in some measure to the
exiled people; Ezekiel's description of the Glory itself and any significance pertaining to
that description, including questions of Yahweh's enthronement; Ezekiel's
disagreements with various Deuteronomistic views; and, finally, what I consider to be the
overarching meaning the prophet expresses through the vehicle of the Glory. As stated
above, I maintain that Ezekiel reveals the Glory in a manner meant to differ in a
significant way from Deuteronomistic Name theology. Drawing on his own Priestly
tradition, he presents the Glory in a way unseen since pre-Tabernacle days. With this,
Ezekiel creates a link between the present and the past, as the past was imagined by the
Priestly school. The Glory resumes former activity when, according to tradition, a
dislocated Israel was only a fledgling nation; it thus becomes a catalyst for what is not
only a new beginning, but what is in effect beginning all over again.
Chapter Five, the Conclusion, will briefly summarize the larger work and offer
final remarks.
28
Chapter Two
Centralization and the Name Theology
This chapter discusses the topic of the centralization of worship of Yahweh to one
chosen locale in Deuteronomic and, consequently, Deuteronomistic literature. Our
primary emphasis will rest upon the book of Deuteronomy itself and the corpus typically
known as the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH), which consists of Joshua through 2
Kings.
62
Specifically, we will examine the intent and extent of centralizing ideology in
62 I acknowledge that the Deuteronomistic redactor or redactors (Dtr) have also incorporated some pre-
Deuteronomic material into their overarching work. I also proceed with the understanding that the
dating and compositional progression of the Deuteronomistic History, which was based upon the book
of Deuteronomy, remains one of the more overwrought topics in scholarship. The date for the DtrH is
not central to this dissertation, though I tend essentially to favor the view of Cross, summarized below.
Martin Noth first proposed in 1943 that the DtrH was written by one person in Judah during the period
of the Babylonian Exile, incorporating many older documents and records. Noth, The Deuteronomistic
History. Since Noth's respected and widely influential contribution, countless revisions to his theory
have appeared -- most notably for North American scholarship the work of Frank Moore Cross, who
accepted Noth's idea of an exilic-era Deuteronomist, but postulated that this person (Dtr
2
) was in fact
building upon and reinterpreting the preexilic work of the primary Deuteronomist (Dtr
1
). Frank Moore
Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1973) 274-289. Cross is followed by, e.g., Richard D. Nelson, The Double
Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History, JSOTSupp 18 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981); Richard Elliott
Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative: The Formation of the Deuteronomistic and Priestly Works,
Harvard Semitic Monographs 22 (Chico, Calif: Scholars Press, 1981); Baruch Halpern, The First
Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History (San Francisco: Harper&Row, 1988); Gary Knoppers,
Rethinking the Relationship between Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History: The Case of
Kings, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 63, no. 3 (2001): 393-415; Jeffrey C. Geoghegan, The Time, Place,
and Purpose of the Deuteronomistic History: The Evidence of "Until This Day," Brown Judaic Studies
347 (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2006). Prominent in Germany is the work of the Gttingen
school led by Rudolf Smend, which has spawned several different permutations of Smend's theory of
many strata in the DtrH. Smend's hypothesis originated with a DtrH, DtrP, and DtrN in different times
during the Neo-Babylonian period; however, his followers all contend for different delineations, goals,
and dating of such strata, and some perceive even more strata than did Smend. Rudolf Smend, Die
Entstehung des Alten Testaments, 2
nd
ed. (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1981) 110-125; also, e.g., Ernst
Wrthwein, Studien zum deuteronomischen Geschichtswerk, BZAW 227 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
1994) 1-11. Some representatives, among many, of other views concerning the exilic provenance of the
DtrH, are John Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins
of Biblical History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) 209-353; Mettinger, The Dethronement
29
Deuteronomistic literature, with a particular interest in the manner in which the
Deuteronomists employ so-called Name theology to express Yahweh's presence and
their goal of centralized worship. Further, we will analyze the powerful ramifications this
centralizing Name theology poses for the way the Deuteronomists answer the question of
how and under what strictly defined circumstances -- God dwells on Earth. We will see
that Name theology in no way reduces the Temple's importance as the dwelling for
Yahweh's earthly presence, nor does it relegate the Temple to symbolic or
demythologized status, as has often been claimed. Rather, Deuteronomistic theology
centralizes God's earthly presence to the Temple in a totalizing manner that appears to
offer no explicit way to address the new reality of dislocation in which Judean exiles
found themselves. Understanding this Deuteronomistic theology is important to my larger
thesis because I contend that Ezekiel depicts God's presence in a way radically different
from Deuteronomistic thought, drawing his inspiration from the Priestly portrayal of
God's presence when no Tabernacle existed.
The Biblical Account and the Question of the One Chosen Place.
In 1805, Wilhelm de Wette first articulated the premise that Deuteronomy, or at
least some form of it, was composed in late Judean monarchic times -- most likely the 7
th
century BCE -- and was intimately connected with the centralizing reforms of King
of Sabaoth; Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch, BZAW 189 (Berlin: de Gruyter,
1990); Rainer Albertz, Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century BCE (Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2003) 282-284. Among the most recent contributions of the Gttingen
school is the argument for an Enneateuch held together by Deuteronomistic strata that span the
Pentateuch as well as the traditional DtrH. Further, this approach argues not for Deuteronomistic
History but for Deuteronomistic Histories, with respect to genre as well as strata. For this, see
Markus Witte et al., eds., Die Deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerke.
30
Josiah. This premise, though not unchallenged in modernity, has stood the test of time
and is still largely accepted,
63
particularly though certainly not exclusively in North
American scholarship. Various challenges to this premise have for some time been based
on redaction criticism -- encompassing both Deuteronomy and the DtrH
64
-- which has as
its disadvantage the tendency toward hypothetical conclusions from subjective analyses
that are often mutually contradictory among scholars advocating the approach. Hence,
while this approach does continue, recent years have seen the emergence of challenges
based on historical reconstructions with a de-emphasis on redaction criticism.
Raymond Person, for example, champions reconstructions that do not rely on
redaction criticism per se, but which place more emphasis on text criticism, which he
sees as less subjective and hypothetical.
65
Person argues for the DtrH as a composition
that spanned several generations and historical circumstances from the Neo-Babylonian
Period into the Persian Period. In Person's reconstruction, the Deuteronomic school
66

was founded not in the monarchic era but in the context of the Babylonian Exile; Person
envisions many scribes at work, in a Babylonian setting rather than a Judahite one,
though such scribes may have brought monarchic-era documents with them to Babylonia.
Person argues that members of the Deuteronomic school then returned to Judah with an
63 For example, von Rad, Deuteronomy: A Commentary, 26-28; Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of
Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 173-
175; Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School,
1, 9; idem, Deuteronomy 1-11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, 16-19; Clements,
Deuteronomy and the Jerusalem Cult Tradition, 301; A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy, New Century
Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 81 ff.; Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition, 1
ff; Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into the Character of
Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) 136-
141. Recently, Geoghegan, The Time, Place, and Purpose of the Deuteronomistic History.
64 For some flagship examples of such redaction-based challenges, see fn 62.
65 Raymond F. Person, The Deuteronomic School: History, Social Setting, and Literature, Studies in
Biblical Literature 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
66 Person eliminates the common distinction between Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic.
31
early version of the DtrH during the time of Zerubbabel, continued with literary activity
until the time of Ezra, when the school met its demise in alienation from the Persian
Empire in the wake of an increased eschatological bent after Zerubbabel. In this
reconstruction, the law of Ezra then assumed control.
67
Similar to Person's strategy is that of Thomas Rmer, who also voices skepticism
at the prospects of redaction criticism to unearth accurately the hypothetical layers of
Deuteronomy and the DtrH. Unlike Person, however, despite these reservations Rmer
does engage in redaction criticism in his assessment of the Deuteronomic corpus,
68

though he also draws conclusions from historical reconstructions, such as the proposed
Persian-period redaction having been completed by Deuteronomists returning to
Jerusalem with themes of monotheism and exile. In his analysis, Rmer identifies three
redaction layers, each coming from a different time period Josianic, Neo-Babylonian,
and Persian. These layers can be found, for example, within Deut 12:2-27. Within each
layer, Rmer postulates not an individual scribe at work but various scribes within the
Deuteronomic school of the time.
Gary Knoppers, on the other hand, has advocated an editorial and theological
disjunction between Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History, particularly the
67 While I find Person's skepticism of the results of DtrH redaction criticism to be noteworthy, as well as
his effort to place a greater role on text critcism, I am not convinced of Person's implication that text
criticism is inherently more immune from subjective and hypothetical conclusions than redaction
criticism. Text criticism is no more of an exact science, nor, for that matter, is any type of biblical
criticism. It would seem, however, that some combination of methods, with a healthy respect for and
acknowledgement of the inexact nature of these undertakings, can prove fruitful. With regard to the
specifics of Person's reconstruction, I find the argument that the Deuteronomic school became
eschatological in the Persian Period after Zerubbabel, and thus fell out of favor and ceased to exist
with the ascension of Ezra, to be the most speculative.
68 Thomas Rmer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical, and Literary
Introduction (New York: T & T Clark, 2005).
32
books of Kings.
69
Knoppers bases his proposal largely on disparities he perceives
between the law of the king (Deut 17:14-20) and the subsequent Deuteronomistic
pronouncements and attitudes toward the king in Israelite society in the books of Kings;
in his view, these do not match the view of the Deuteronomic law. Knoppers thus
postulates different composers and editors for Deuteronomy (Deuteronomic editors)
than for the Deuteronomistic History (Deuteronomistic editors); following Cross, he
advocates two distinct editings, arguing that the Deuteronomistic school was not a
monolithic entity.
70
With regard to the possible relationship between the book of Deuteronomy and
King Josiah, the biblical text, for its part, unfolds in the following way. 2 Kings 22-23:27
describes Josiah's reforms, which are based on a scroll (perhaps containing some form of
Deuteronomy) that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Jerusalem Temple. In
accordance with the prescriptions of this scroll, Josiah reportedly called for a great
Passover to be celebrated in Jerusalem, which according to the text had not been done for
as long as anyone could remember. Significantly, Deuteronomy calls for the Passover to
be celebrated in such a centralized fashion at the chosen place (Jerusalem), while the
older JE legislation had allowed for people to celebrate the Passover in their own
homes.
71
In addition to centralizing the Passover, Josiah went even further than his great-
69 Knoppers, Rethinking the Relationship between Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History: The
Case of Kings, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 63, no. 3 (2001): 393-415.
70 Ibid., 414.
71 This may have been in recognition that the first Passover as described in Exodus was, of course,
supposed to have taken place in the Hebrews' own homes in Egypt. The JE legislation here likely
preserves an older form of the tradition that had not yet been reformed in accordance with
Deuteronomic centralization theology. We will revisit the matter of the location of Passover celebration
in Ch. 3, where we will explore related aspects of Priestly ideology.
33
grandfather Hezekiah, who, we are told, had rid the Temple of elements of illicit non-
Yahwistic worship and removed the high places in Judah. Not only did Josiah ensure
the Yahwistic exclusivity of the Temple, but also he purportedly saw to it that the many
high places throughout the countryside were destroyed, in Judah and in Samaria,
including the great high place at Bethel. In the process he put the attending priests to the
sword. The biblical text further reports that Josiah did away with religious practitioners
judged to be wizards or sorcerers, and eliminated teraphim.
The centralization of worship to a sole place, Jerusalem, where it could be strictly
monitored, was thereby put into effect in intent -- regardless of whether such a law ever
enjoyed enforcement. There is no better practical expression of Deuteronomy's restriction
of worship to one chosen place than the apparent reforms of Josiah's reign, although
similar reforming sentiments are said to have begun during Hezekiah's reign in the 8th
century BCE.
72
Yehezkel Kaufmann aptly notes:
The novelty of the Deuteronomic law is not the conception of a great central sanctuary
of unique importance and holiness. From earliest times, the great sanctuaries of
Shechem, Bethel, Dan, Gibeon, and Jerusalem overshadowed the smaller local
altars....The new feature of Deuteronomy is its emphatic interdiction of all sacrifice
outside the one chosen site (Deut. 12:13f., 17, 26f.). According to the law of JE in
Exodus 13:12ff., 22:29, and 34:19f., firstlings are to be given over to YHWH; no
place is specified for this surrender. D, however, expressly prescribes that this be done
at the chosen site (Deut. 12:6ff; 15:20). The law of Exodus 12:21-27 (JE) conceives the
paschal sacrifice as a home ceremony; D makes it obligatory to celebrate the rite at the
chosen site (16:1-8). The Deuteronomic law goes beyond the law of JE by restricting all
cultic activity to the place which YHWH will choose.
73
Not all scholars have accepted the idea that Deuteronomy ever demanded a sole
72 Indeed, Ernest Nicholson argues that Deuteronomy was inspired by, and written just after, the reforms
of Hezekiah in order to promote those reforms after Hezekiah's successor Manasseh reportedly reversed
them. Nicholson thus argues that Deuteronomy was written as a religious remonstration during
Manasseh's reign, and that Josiah, who succeeded Manasseh, turned to the already extant Deuteronomy
as his impetus to reinstate Hezekiah's reformation. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition, 101.
73 Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, 173.
34
place of worship, however. J.G. McConville, for example, acceps that Deuteronomy
desired a central place of worship (designated preeminent in our discussion of
McConville's position for the sake of clarity), but he denies that that place needed to be
the sole place of worship.
74
In his view, Deuteronomy allows for other, lesser sanctuaries
while holding up Jerusalem as the preeminent place. McConville also advocates that
because of Deuteronomy's emphasis on Yahweh's choice, Deuteronomic theology does
not hold "the place Yahweh will choose" to be any specific location, including Jerusalem,
but rather leaves the question open.
75
Jerusalem might be functioning as the chosen place
at a given time, but no intrinsically special nature adheres to it; at any time Yahweh may
decide to choose another place for his presence. Of course, the suggestion that Jerusalem
was not necessarily the chosen place originally intended by Deuteronomy, but was only
understood as such at a later point, did not originate with McConville but has also
appeared in the work of various prior scholars.
76
To support his contention that Deuteronomy desired a preeminent but not a sole
sanctuary, McConville raises the question of Deut 16:21, which prohibits the placement
of an asherah or any wooden item (85) beside an altar of Yahweh, as Deuteronomic
theology saw such objects as prohibited in the worship of Yahweh. McConville reasons
that since the planting of a tree beside an altar which was in a temple would be difficult,
74 J. G McConville, Law and Theology in Deuteronomy, JSOTSupp 33 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1984), 28-29.
75 J. G McConville and J. G Millar, Time and Place in Deuteronomy, JSOT 179 (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1994), 139.
76 Otto Eissfeldt, Silo und Jerusalem, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 4 (1956): 138-148; Gerhard
von Rad, Studies in Deuteronomy (Chicago: H. Regnery, 1953); idem, Deuteronomy; a Commentary
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966); Fritz Dumermuth, Zur deuteronomischen Kulttheologie und
ihren Voraussetzungen, Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 70, no. 1-2 (1958): 59-98;
Terrien, The Elusive Presence; Harold Henry Rowley, Worship in Ancient Israel; Its Forms and
Meaning, American ed., Edward Cadbury lectures 1965 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967).
35
this verse has been taken as a reference to other altars besides the central one.
77
Gerhard
von Rad also took this prohibition to presuppose the existence of many legitimate
Yahweh sanctuaries, though he saw it as evidence that this text was originally from a pre-
Deuteronomic period that did not yet know of the total centralization of worship.
78

Contra McConville's contention, there is no solid evidence that an asherah could
not have been placed beside the altar of Yahweh in the Temple. To wit, 2 Kings 23:4
states that Josiah removed from the Jerusalem Temple all the objects that had been made
for Baal and for Asherah/the asherah (';>#'), presumably by his grandfather
Manasseh, whom 2 Kings 21:7 describes as having placed the image of Asherah/the
asherah (';>#') in the Temple. The asherah Manasseh placed in the Temple certainly
need not have been a living tree, as 85 itself does not merely refer to a tree but can also
signify, quite simply, wood. Indeed we would almost be compelled to presume that, given
its location, it could not have been a living tree. As Elizabeth Larocca-Pitts notes in her
study of certain cultic items in the Bible: It need not refer to an actual plant which one
plants in the ground. Similarly 85 can mean 'tree' or simply 'wood' or 'wooden object.'
There is no indication of the shape of any such wooden object....
79
77 McConville, Law and Theology in Deuteronomy, 28.
78 von Rad, Deuteronomy; a Commentary, 115.
79 Elizabeth C. LaRocca-Pitts, Of Wood and Stone: The Significance of Israelite Cultic Items in the Bible
and Its Early Interpreters, Harvard Semitic Monographs 61 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2001),
174. Larocca-Pitts proposes that if the asherah were a shrine, rather than a consort to Yahweh or an
object used in his worship, the argument that sources disapproved of ' " rm " # because they were
Canaanite or dedicated to 'Asherah as a separate deity would dissolve. The opinion of the sources which
condemn ' " rm " # , then, would not be based on any issue of polytheism, but on the issue of cultic
centralization or on some other issue concerning the proper form of otherwise YHWHistic worship.
Larocca-Pitts, Of Wood and Stone, 187. For an overview of the possibilities concerning the identity of
the asherah, and for various proposals scholars have made, see Larocca-Pitts, Of Wood and Stone, 161-
204. Despite LaRocca-Pitts' position that the asherah could be an unapproved Yahwistic shrine, it seems
more likely that worship of the goddess is involved, even if such worship were sometimes conducted in
tandem with Yahweh worship. For the evidence and convincing argumentation in support of this
perspective, see William Dever, Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient
36
Even if Deut 16:21 refers to many and disparate altars, however, neither
McConville nor von Rad is correct to conclude that it is irreconcilable with the
Deuteronomic restriction of worship to one place. Pekka Pitknen raises an important
chronological caveat: he understands this passage to point to altars that an Israelite may
set up before the settlement is complete and Yahweh's chosen place has been designated.
To be sure, Pitknen understands Deuteronomy, and the Pentateuch as a whole, to
advocate an ideal of centralization even before settlement in the land -- indeed from the
time that the Tabernacle was built. But he sees this passage, taken in its narrative context,
as representing a transitional time when centralization has not yet been attained.
80

Pitknen also points out that the very same phrase, -'/# '(', *$)1, the altar of
Yahweh your God, also appears in Deut 12:27, which insists that one must offer burnt
sacrifices and pour sacrificial blood on the one altar of Yahweh.
81
The altar of Yahweh of
which the text speaks in Deut 12:27 is, of course, that of the sole chosen place, since
Deuteronomy 12 is the quintessential text ordering the restriction of worship to that
chosen place.
McConville emphasizes Deut 27:5-7 as the primary support for his contention that
Deuteronomy does not restrict worship to one place. In this passage, Moses instructs the
Israelites to build an altar of unhewn stones on Mt. Ebal soon after crossing the Jordan, to
make sacrifices to Yahweh upon it, and to rejoice before Yahweh. McConville concludes:
This means that, alongside the altar-law, Deuteronomy prescribes sacrifice, albeit on a
Israel (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2005) 209-238.
80 Pekka Pitknen, Central Sanctuary and Centralization of Worship in Ancient Israel: From the
Settlement to the Building of Solomon's Temple, Gorgias Dissertations (Piscataway: Gorgias Press,
2003), 103.
81 Ibid., 103-104 including n. 130.
37
single occasion only, at another place....It is not possible to show, therefore, that
Deuteronomy requires that worship be carried on in one place only. Its altar-law can be
said to require no more than a pre-eminent sanctuary, tacitly allowing other, lesser
altars.
82
We may raise more than one objection to this conclusion, however. First, this
instance, which is to occur in a celebratory event as soon as the Israelites cross the
Jordan, does not violate the altar law because, from the literary point of view, Yahweh has
not yet chosen his sole place of worship. The phrase employed in v. 5 is 0.;$5$, when
you cross over, or perhaps more accurately, 'upon crossing over'....implying that the
stones are to be set up immediately.
83
If they are to be set up immediately to
commemorate the momentous crossing of the Jordan River, they cannot be in violation of
Deuteronomy's law of centralized worship, since Yahweh has not yet revealed the place
to put his Name.
84
Only after Yahweh has chosen that place can the Israelites be in
violation by sacrificing elsewhere. As Tigay puts it, These sacrifices are part of a one-
time ceremony. Thus, there is no conflict with Deuteronomy's restriction of sacrificial
worship to Jerusalem, because that was to take effect only later (see 12:8-12).
85
One cannot argue that Deuteronomy is not aware of such chronological issues,
82 McConville, Law and Theology in Deuteronomy, 29.
83 Tigay, Deuteronomy: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation, 248.
84 Weinfeld, too, notes that the author of Deuteronomy, in putting his speech into the mouth of Moses,
purposely avoided mentioning concrete names and objects such as Jerusalem, the city, the house, David,
bam t $ , Baal, and Ashtoreth, which might sound anachronistic. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the
Deuteronomic School, 6. Also Clements, Deuteronomy and the Jerusalem Cult Tradition, 312.
85 Tigay, Deuteronomy, 249. Also Kaufmann, who notes, In contrast to JE, it [D] unconditionally and
absolutely forbids all sacrifice outside the central sanctuary. To be sure, D recognizes that such sacrifice
was once legitimate; only when Israel arrives at 'the rest and the inheritance,' says Moses, must they put
the law of centralization into effect and cease doing 'according to all that we do here today' (Deut.
12:8ff.). Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, 173.
38
since Deut 12:8-11, which lies at the heart of the centralization ordinance, clearly
recognizes that the situation it describes will occur in the future when God chooses to
establish his Name at the specific place, and that such a situation does not obtain at
present. After describing the sacrificial feasts that the people will enjoy when they bring
offerings to the chosen place (12:6-7), the biblical text elaborates:
You shall not act according to all that we are doing here right now, each man doing all
that is right in his own eyes, because you have not yet come to the resting place and the
allotment that Yahweh your God is giving to you. When you cross the Jordan and settle
in the land that Yahweh your God is allotting you, and he causes you to rest from all
your surrounding enemies and you dwell in security at that time you shall bring all that
I am commanding you to the place that Yahweh your God will choose to establish his
name, your burnt offerings and your other sacrifices, your tithes and the offerings of
your hand, and all your choice votive offerings that you shall vow to Yahweh.
As if there could be any uncertainty, vv. 13-14 reiterate: Take heed of yourself,
lest you offer up your burnt offerings in any place that you see -- but rather, only in the
place that Yahweh will choose within one of your tribes, there you shall offer up your
burnt offerings and there you shall do all that I am commanding you. It is difficult to see
any equivocation here: in the present, before Yahweh makes known the one place of his
choosing, Israelites may offer their sacrifices at other altars. But when Yahweh has made
known his chosen place, worship will be restricted to that site. With this distinction in
mind, it is worth citing Tigay's precise summary of the point of view of Deuteronomy and
the later Deuteronomistic writers on the matter addressed in these verses.
The present situation is permitted because the Israelites are not yet settled in their
'allotted haven'....As verse 10 indicates, the phrase refers to two conditions necessary
for putting centralization into effect: the Israelites must enter their allotted territory,
west of the Jordan, and must hold it securely.....According to Joshua 21:42, these
conditions were met when Joshua conquered the land, and Shiloh was considered the
chosen place for a time. The later historical books imply that they [the conditions] were
met once and for all in the days of David and Solomon, when the Canaanites in the
promised land had been overcome and Israel ruled over the neighboring territories, and
Solomon built the Temple. It is from that point on that the book of Kings judges each
39
king in accordance with whether or not he enforced centralization.
86
In addition, the altar of stones on Mt. Ebal was to serve a specific,
commemorative purpose, as the text itself states, and as McConville also
acknowledges.
87
The act of crossing into the Promised Land after forty years of
wandering in the wilderness, which was preceded by roughly four hundred years of
enslavement, would indeed have been an event to warrant an official thanksgiving to God
for fulfilling his covenant promise to Abraham. It would also have been an occasion for
much rejoicing, and thus the text specifies in v. 6 that as part of the sacrificial
ceremonies, you shall rejoice (=*1?() before Yahweh your God. To this end, in
addition to burnt offerings (=/(5), the Israelites are to offer sacrifices of well-being (
=(1/>), in which, notes Tigay, most of the flesh was eaten by the worshiper and hence
appropriate for a festive occasion....Shelamim sacrifices were often offered, along with
other types, on historic occasions inaugurating important institutions, such as the
conclusion of the covenant at Mount Sinai, the inauguration of worship at the Tabernacle,
King Saul's coronation, and the dedication of Solomon's Temple.
88
Significantly, then, the two types of sacrifices in Moses' instructions are already
associated with covenants, as indicated by their use at Mt. Sinai (Exod 24:5). But the
86 Tigay, Deuteronomy, 122-123.
87 Other scholars have also pointed to the enormous symbolic significance of the Ebal ceremony. Andrew
Mayes, while believing that the ceremony does "clearly conflict" with the Deuteronomic law of the
central sanctuary, nonetheless notes that due to its commemorative purpose, this is "outside the real
concern of the deuteronomistic context, which is focused rather on the idea of Israel's subjection to the
law on the point of entry into the land." A. D. H Mayes, Deuteronomy, New Century Bible Commentary
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 342. Ronald Clements, also of the opinion that this ceremony
"contravenes" Deuteronomic centralization, argues that it may be recognizing a time before the central
altar at Jerusalem was the only one permitted; but he notes that the passage's overriding goal is "a single
concerted action aimed at memorializing Israel's entry into the land." Clements, The Book of
Deuteronomy, 119-120.
88 Tigay, Deuteronomy, 250.
40
Sinai covenant is not the only one in view. As we have already noted, the event at Mt.
Ebal marked the crossing into the Promised Land, and thus the beginning stages of the
fulfillment of God's promise of land to Abraham's descendants. Verse 3 clearly references
the covenant of the ancestors when it speaks of the land that Yahweh your God is giving
to you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as Yahweh the God of your ancestors
promised to you. Edward Noort remarks upon a parallel dimension to the altar tradition
here, namely that the patriarchs themselves had built altars upon entering the land, e.g.,
Abram at Shechem in Gen 12:7 and Jacob at Shechem on re-entering the land in Gen
33:20. With reference to Ebal, Noort observes that from the perspective of Deuteronomy,
1. With this altar and with these offerings the true YHWH-cult in 'ancient times' [i.e.,
patriarchal times] is demonstrated; 2. Promise of land and promise of descendants is
connected with the building of an altar on entering or re-entering the land as the
patriarchs did.
89
The setup of the Mt. Ebal altar also serves to honor the Mt. Sinai covenant, as
Moses explicitly instructs the people in v. 3 to inscribe the stones for the altar with the
covenant Teaching received at Sinai: You shall write upon them [the altar stones] all the
words of this Teaching when you cross over. The event that is to take place at Mt. Ebal,
then, represents and commemorates not one but two covenants. The extraordinary nature
of this occasion, therefore, must be recognized. Noort aptly summarizes the intent: What
was once said far away (Sinai), is said again on the threshold (Deuteronomy/Moab
covenant) and is definitely repeated in the land itself. The scene on the Ebal means one
89 Edward Noort, The Traditions of Ebal and Gerizim: Theological Positions in the Book of Joshua, in
Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Literature: Festschrift C.H.W. Brekelmans, ed. M. Vervenne and J.
Lust, BETL 133 (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1997), 172.
41
thing: Sinai is coming home.
90

The fulfillment of Moses' command is recorded in Josh 8:30-35:
At that time, Joshua built an altar to Yahweh the God of Israel on Mt. Ebal, as Moses
the servant of Yahweh had commanded the Israelites -- as is written in the book of the
Teaching of Moses an altar of unhewn stones upon which no iron had been wielded.
So they sent up upon it burnt offerings to Yahweh, and they offered the sacrifices of
well-being. And he wrote there on the stones a copy of the Teaching of Moses that he
[Moses] had written in the presence of the Israelites.
Moshe Weinfeld comments that we should understand the Deuteronomist's recounting of
Joshua fulfilling Moses' command to read publicly the book of the Teaching in light of
the practice of public reading of treaties in the ancient Near East.
91
According to
Weinfeld, the Deuteronomic ordinance to read publicly the contents of the covenant has
parallels with the provisions of Hittite treaties to read the treaty in the presence of the
leader and his subjects so that they may know and observe it.
92
It would seem, then, that the one-time event on Mt. Ebal to offer thanks to
Yahweh for not one but two covenants, and to rejoice upon entry to the Promised Land,
cannot serve as a true refutation of the idea of one central sanctuary. This is so quite apart
from the fact that the Mt. Ebal event was to occur before Yahweh had chosen the place to
establish exclusive worship. Furthermore, one cannot ignore that Deuteronomy itself
makes provisions to compensate for the loss of the local sanctuaries, against which it
legislates with its centralization law of the chosen place. For example, Deut 12:20-25
allows for non-sacral slaughter of animals at private homes, recognizing that many
people living too far from the central sanctuary would be unable to consume meat from
domestic animals if such meat had to be sacrificed by a priest. Deuteronomy thus
90 Ibid., 178.
91 Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 65.
92 Ibid., 64-65.
42
abolished the requirement that the slaughter of domestic animals be sacrificial slaughter,
as had previously been the case. Since people would no longer be able to have their
animals sacrificially slaughtered at a local altar, non-sacral slaughter would be permitted.
It is also highly likely, as Ernest Nicholson points out, that the Deuteronomic abolition of
local altars lies behind the deep concern of Deuteronomy that all Levites be well cared
for by the larger population and be allowed to minister at the central sanctuary if they so
desired.
93

It has also been suggested that while Deuteronomy sanctioned only one place at a
time for licit worship, Ebal itself is the place originally intended for Yahweh's Name,
even if at a later point that place shifted to Jerusalem. Sandra Richter, noting the
important link between the command in Deut 12:1-3 to wipe out the names of the
Canaanite deities from their sacred monuments, and the Mesopotamian monument curses
prohibiting antagonists from removing (nas ku ! ) or rubbing out (pa" u !' ) the monument
owner's inscribed name,
94
proposes that Mt. Ebal is in fact the chosen place Deuteronomy
intends. As Richter observes, once the names and therefore the ownership claims -- of
Canaanite gods have been erased from their worship sites, the stage is set for Yahweh's
name to be attached to the only site of his choosing. However, there is little textual
evidence that Yahweh's unique site is to be Mt. Ebal, despite the ceremony that occurs
there.
Richter's claim hinges on the Mosaic ordinance (discussed above) to inscribe
Yahweh's Teaching on the monument that the Israelites are to install on the mountain, to
93 Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition, 54-55.
94 Richter, The Place of the Name in Deuteronomy, 346.
43
commemorate their crossing into the Promised Land.
95
This inscription, as we saw, was
accompanied by a recitation of that Teaching and celebratory sacrifices. Richter certainly
weakens the old geographically-based notion that the description of the Mt. Ebal
ceremony actually conflates two ceremonies, an altar ceremony at Shechem and a
stelae ceremony at Gilgal,
96
but her contention that Ebal is the chosen site intended by
Deuteronomy suffers from the fact that Deuteronomy itself says nothing about Yahweh
placing his Name there. The dedicatory inscription of the Teaching on the Ebal
monument serves both to commemorate and to confirm Israel's covenant, but it does not
represent the equivalent of Yahweh's choice of that site to establish his Name as the sole
place of worship. Indeed, Ebal represents only the beginning of Israel's migration into the
Promised Land.
Although it is true that Jerusalem is not mentioned within Deuteronomy as the
place for Yahweh's Name, it is also true that Jerusalem is never mentioned in
Deuteronomy for any reason, because within its literary setting the Israelites' involvement
with Jerusalem remains far in the future. It is far too difficult to accept that the text would
have discussed Ebal, and the events that occurred there, in such detail without mentioning
that the mountain was the much heralded place for Yahweh's Name, to which worship
was to be restricted.
The Meaning of the Name Theology and its Primary Role as Stricture.
A discussion of the meaning of the Deuteronomic Name theology is important
95 Ibid., 348, 365.
96 Ibid., 351-361.
44
in this context. As previously noted, Deuteronomy and its companion work the
Deuteronomistic History (DtrH) describe Yahweh's relationship to the Temple in terms of
his Name's being there. With respect to the question of how Deuteronomistic theology
conceives of the relationship of Yahweh's Name to the Temple, the meaning of the two
Deuteronomistic phrases >/ . 0> (1> 2 and 0> (1> 0(?/, to cause his name to dwell
there and to place his name there, respectively, come to the fore. Both refer to the
place Yahweh will choose. While no interpretive difficulty attends the second phrase, the
first phrase has occasioned disagreement. Since the Qal conjugation of the root 2.>
denotes "to abide, settle, or dwell" in an intransitive sense, the Piel conjugation found
here can be taken to denote "to cause to abide, settle, or dwell."
97
With this fact in mind,
we must first survey the interpretive ramifications stemming from the traditional
translation with respect to the Temple and the Ark; then we may turn to a reevaluation of
the meaning of these phrases.
Until recent years, "to cause to abide, settle, or dwell" was the standard way to
translate the Piel phrase. This translation supported the interpretation that the Name is
merely an abstraction of Yahweh, intended to deny that the deity himself has an earthly
dwelling place, and to indicate a new era in Israelite religion in which the Name is
conceived as a mediator. Gerhard von Rad well represents this view:
But in Deuteronomy a more precise distinction is made between Yahweh and the
sanctuary. The name dwells on earth in the sanctuary; Yahweh himself is in heaven.
Here we have a theologically very striking conception of the name, which is present at
the shrine in almost material form, is regarded almost as a person, and acts as a
mediator between Yahweh and his people. This idea must therefore be understood as a
97 This is due to the factitive function of the Piel in relaton to a Qal intransitive verb, where the Piel
"expresses the notion of effecting or causing a state corresponding to the basic meaning of the root...."
Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, Ind:
Eisenbrauns, 1990), 398. See also ibid., 398-400. This matter will be discussed in further detail below.
45
protest against popular conceptions of the actual presence of Yahweh at the sanctuary.
98

The idea that this alleged aspect of Deuteronomic theology, which was linked
with the call for centralization, indicated a sweeping reform of prior religious thought in
Israel remained essentially unchallenged for many years. Prior to von Rad, Martin Noth
asserted that for the Deuteronomist and the succeeding Deuteronomistic historians, the
Temple was a symbolic place only, divorced from the actual presence of Yahweh and
conceived of primarily as only a house of prayer rather than of traditional
sacrifice.
99
Walther Eichrodt, similar to von Rad, asserted that Deuteronomic thought
bestowed on the divine Name a hypostatic character almost independent of Yahweh
himself.
100
Ronald Clements claimed that the Deuteronomists denied that Mount Zion
was Yahweh's chosen dwelling-place in the old mythico-cultic sense, by setting forth the
doctrine that it was Yahweh's name which dwelt there.
101
Ernest Nicholson, stating his
own agreement with such interpretations, remarked that Deuteronomy sought to place a
distance between Yahweh and his Temple in an effort to replace the old crude idea of
Yahweh's presence and dwelling at the shrine by a theologically sublimated idea.
102
Fritz Dumermuth, while advocating the Name theology's sublimating purpose,
proposed that it originally arose at Bethel (in his view, the Deuteronomic chosen place) in
North Israel shortly after the dissolution of the United Monarchy, when the Bethel
priesthood attempted to create a substitute, more abstract theology to compensate for the
loss of the Ark to Judah.
103
Samuel Terrien also maintained that Name theology was an
98 von Rad, Deuteronomy; a Commentary, 90.
99 Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, 94-95.
100Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 41.
101Clements, Deuteronomy and the Jerusalem Cult Tradition, 304.
102Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition, 55-56.
103Dumermuth, Zur deuteronomischen Kulttheologie und ihren Voraussetzungen, 70ff.
46
attempt to abstract the deity. It originated in the North, but thrived at the Shechem cultic
center; after the Assyrian destruction of North Israel, it was transported south to
Jerusalem and played a role in Josiah's reforms there.
104

The scholarly conception of the Name as a development intended to distance
Yahweh from his Temple continued into more modern times, as well, most notably in the
work of Moshe Weinfeld, who sees both cult centralization and Name theology as
turning points in Israelite religion introduced by Deuteronomic thought. Weinfeld
writes, The elimination of the provincial cult permitted the transformation of Israel's
religion into a more abstract religion, one that minimized external expression....the
expression 'to cause his name to dwell (l"kn "mw)' reflects a new theological conception
of the Deity, and....is intended to combat the ancient popular belief that the Deity actually
dwelled within the Sanctuary.
105

This line of thought, along with the traditional translation of the phrases cited
above, has often been coupled with a companion notion that the Ark in Deuteronomic
thinking is merely a container for the tablets of the covenant, and not also the
traditional throne of Yahweh that we see in passages like Num 10:33-36, 14:44, and 1
Sam 4:6-7. In these passages, Yahweh is understood as seated above the Ark's cherubim
statues. In allegedly thinking of the Ark as only a container and not also Yahweh's throne,
Deuteronomic theology purportedly further rids Israelite religion of embarrassing
104Terrien, The Elusive Presence, 199.
105Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, 37; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 193. Similarly
Tigay, Deuteronomy, xiii. Contrast A.D.H. Mayes, in a rare early protest against this way of thinking,
who believed the conventional scholarly understanding of Name theology "introduces a false distinction
between Yahweh and his name. The name and the reality signified thereby are not distinguishable; when
Yahweh is said to have caused his name to dwell at a sanctuary the intention is to indicate the real and
effective presence of Yahweh himself at that sanctuary...." Mayes, Deuteronomy, 59-60.
47
mythological elements in favor of a more spiritualized worldview juxtaposed with
the idea that Yahweh's presence is not truly within the Temple. In this view, the Ark did
not signal God's nearness; it was only a sign of God's covenant relationship with Israel.
106
The commentators cited above were united in their understanding of Name
theology as a corrective evolutionary development and in their understanding that this
Deuteronomic revolution occurred around the time of Josiah, before the Babylonian
destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Tryggve Mettinger also favors the traditional
translation of >/ . 0> (1> 2 and understands the Name to be an abstract form of
Yahweh's presence. However, he argues that Name theology is an adaptation to a post-
monarchic Israelite world in the Neo-Babylonian period, when the Temple had been
destroyed and thus, Mettinger says, only the Name could be conceived of as ever having
dwelt there.
107

In Mettinger's view, this alleged adaptation was a Deuteronomic reaction against
the former Zion-Sabaoth theology, which thrived in monarchic times and held that
Yahweh of Hosts (Sabaoth) dwelt initially upon the Ark's cherubim, and later upon the
giant cherubim in the Temple. After the Ark's placement in the Temple, beneath the large
free-standing cherubim, the Ark came to be regarded as Yahweh's footstool. The title
0,$(;.' $>(,, he who sits/dwells/is enthroned upon the cherubim, is applied to
Yahweh in 1 Sam 4:4, 2 Sam 6:2, 2 Kgs 19:15, Isa 37:16, Ps 80:2, and Ps 99:1.
108

106Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, 39; Tigay, Deuteronomy, xiii; Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition,
103; von Rad, Studies in Deuteronomy, 40; Clements, Deuteronomy and the Jerusalem Cult Tradition,
301-303; Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, 93; Victor Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House:
Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings, JSOTSupp 115
(Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 267.
107Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth, 57-62.
108 Mettinger aptly and succinctly describes the Sabaoth theology in The Dethronement of Sabaoth, 23-
24; see also Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 247.
48
According to Mettinger, then, the Deuteronomists developed their new theology
after Jerusalem was destroyed. They regarded Zion-Sabaoth theology as incompatible
with the reality of the Temple's destruction and introduced the allegedly more abstract
idea that only God's Name had dwelt there. The Babylonian destruction of the Temple
supposedly became more palatable if the deity himself were not actually present within
the structure before its ruination. Mettinger's solution is similar in essentials to the older
view, but with adjustments in chronology and, consequently, motivation.
Scholars who see the use of the Name as an attempt to abstract the deity and
remove him in some sense from the Temple, and who believe Deuteronomy sees the Ark
as only a container and not a throne, have often observed that Deuteronomy never
definitively describes the Ark as a throne in an explicit manner. Had Deuteronomy
viewed the Ark as a throne, as other biblical texts do, then it would have said so clearly,
thus freeing us from ambiguity. But arguments from silence are not often strong,
especially when one considers as even the above commentators in question
acknowledge that Deuteronomy's writers would have been familiar with the already
broadly-accepted concept of the Ark as throne. Mettinger summarizes this concept well
when he states:
[I]n the d br, the innermost chamber of the Temple, God was invisibly enthroned as !
king. His throneseat was composed of the conjoined inner wings of the cherubim, which
met on the horizontal plane, and the Ark served as his footstool. This cultic symbolism,
which was realized in the national temple, was the correlative of the divine epithet....'he
who is enthroned upon the cherubim'.
109
109Mettinger, Dethronement of Sabaoth, 23-24. In the broader context of his book, Mettinger claims that
both the Deuteronomistic and the Priestly writings eschew this older Zion-Sabaoth conception of the
Ark's and the cherubim's function as a defunct theology. This claim is part of Mettinger's larger
argument that both D and P are exilic texts for which the throne conception had become irrelevant,
and perhaps even burdensome. Dethronement, 115. Mettinger sees Ezekiel as a bridge between
Sabaoth theology, in which the throne conception of the Ark and the cherubim thrives, and later exilic
49
It is quite plausible that Deuteronomy simply accepted this widely known role for the
Ark, as well as its role as a covenant receptacle, and thus did not need to make obvious
note of the Ark as throne. The ancient writers could hardly have entertained much
concern for the possible confusion of readers thousands of years later.
Furthermore, the custom of depositing a copy of a treaty or covenant at the feet of
a deity is broadly attested in the ancient Near East.
110
As Pitknen remarks, the
depositing of the law tablets in the ark (Ex 25:21; Dt 10:1-5; 31:26) would be very much
in line with the ancient Near Eastern custom of depositing treaty tablets in the divine
presence....nothing in Dt 10:1-5; 31:26 is in contradiction to the ancient Near Eastern
custom; rather, the texts are perfectly compatible with the custom of placing treaties in
the divine presence.
111
Thus the fact that the Ark housed the tablets of the covenant the
treaty with God argues strongly in favor of Deuteronomy's acknowledgment of the Ark
as Yahweh's throne.
Along these lines is the work of Ian Wilson, who puts forth a detailed argument
that for Deuteronomy, the Ark was by no means merely a container; God's presence
resided above the Ark and, by extension, in the Temple when it was built. One of the
points Wilson elucidates is the statement in Deut 10:8, which refers to Yahweh
designating the Levites to carry the Ark of the Covenant of Yahweh, to stand in the
theology (D and P for Mettinger), in which the throne conception allegedly no longer functions.
Mettinger sees Ezekiel as a bridge because he employs the throne conception quite clearly, but does
so with Glory (&($.) terminology rather than with Sabaoth terminology. Mettinger, Dethronement, 106,
115. Mettinger asserts that P followed Ezekiel, adopted his Glory terminology, but jettisoned his throne
terminology as irrelevant. As I will discuss further in Ch. 3, I find this argument for the theology of P to
be faulty.
110For some examples of such treaties, see Pitknen, Central Sanctuary and Centralization of Worship in
Ancient Israel, 36-37 and 44-45.
111Ibid., 45.
50
presence of Yahweh ( '(', ,37/) to minister to him and to bless in his name. As Wilson
remarks, if the Levites' 'standing before' Yahweh refers to their standing in his presence,
then this would imply a connection with the ark, since it would seem highly unlikely that
the presence before whom the Levites stand would be unconnected with the ark which
they also carry.
112
In his thorough treatment of the phrase '(', ,37/, in the presence of
Yahweh, Wilson convincingly shows that Deuteronomy often connects this phrase with
its centralizing altar law, and employs it to refer to the personal presence of God on Earth
in a way not contradicted by God's dwelling-place in Heaven.
113

In a similar vein, Menahem Haran states that the expression '(', ,37/, which he
translates before the Lord, stems from the basic conception of the temple as a divine
dwelling-place and actually belongs to the temple's technical terminology.
114
In a
footnote, Haran further observes that this same expression often appears in connection
with the Ark even when the Ark is located outside a temple, citing various military
excursions in which Yahweh was believed to sally forth on the Ark on behalf of his
people.
115
It appears, therefore, that Mettinger's statement that '(', ,37/ in Deuteronomy
is merely a linguistic fossil, bearing no semantic cargo of importance,
116
is untenable
an attempt to explain away clear evidence of earthly divine presence in Deuteronomy.
112Ian Wilson, Merely a Container? The Ark in Deuteronomy, in Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel
(New York: T & T Clark, 2005), 214. For full treatment of this question, see ibid., 212-249.
113For this argument in its entirety, see Ian Wilson, Out of the Midst of the Fire: Divine Presence in
Deuteronomy, Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 151 (Atlanta, Ga: Scholars Press, 1995).
Similarly, A.D.H. Mayes notes that the idea of the Name upon the chosen place in Deuteronomy is
primarily "an affirmation of the real and actual presence of Yahweh at the sanctuary; the primary
concern is not with the problem of how God can dwell in heaven and at the same time be present with
his people...." Mayes, Deuteronomy, 225.
114Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 26.
115Ibid., fn 24. Here Haran particularly calls attention to 2 Sam 6:5, 14, 16-17, 21.
116Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth, 53.
51
Haran also offers insights about biblical depictions of the Ark as a throne, a
footstool, and a receptacle. He notes that regardless of whether one thinks of the Ark as a
throne or as a chest for the tablets, one cannot exclude the alternative.
117
Haran points to
an apparent distinction between the Ark proper, which functions as a chest containing the
tablets, and the cherubim that stand with outstretched wings upon the Ark's cover (
=;7.):
[A]lthough the ark was indeed conceived of as a closed chest containing the tables, yet
above it there was a throne for the deity to sit on. In truth, in order to link up these two
symbols adequately, we need only realize that we are really dealing here with two distinct
objects: the ark and the kapp ret $ ....The chest containing the holy objects is the ark itself;
the throne is symbolized only in its cover, the kapp ret $ , on the sides of which the two
cherubim spread their wings.
118

As further evidence for the distinct roles of the Ark and its cherubim cover, Haran
turns to the description of the two huge cherubim statues with outstretched wings that
stood in the inner sanctum of the Jerusalem Temple. The Ark was placed beneath these
cherubim (1 Kgs 6:23-8; 8:1-9), where it was henceforward thought of as Yahweh's
footstool, while the large cherubim statues served as the throne proper. It is clear,
Haran concludes, that the cherubim and the ark served there as two distinct symbols,
even if there was....a certain connection between the two.
119
Hence, the large cherubim
statues became the counterpart of the cherubim on the Ark's cover. Understood this way,
there is even less reason to hold to the idea of a contradiction between the Ark's dual
roles as container and as throne/footstool.
Frank Cross also has spoken of the Ark in the Tabernacle as both witness to the
117Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 247.
118Ibid., 248.
119Ibid., 249.
52
covenant and a throne of an invisible God
120
, remarking that the Tabernacle, and later
the Temple, represent the idea that the earthly sanctuary is the counterpart of the
heavenly dwelling of a deity.
121
Furthermore, ample evidence of cherubim-throne
iconography in the surrounding ancient Near Eastern milieu leaves little room for doubt.
For example, the sarcophagus of Ahiram of Byblos presents a relief of a god (or king)
seated on a cherubim throne; an ivory plaque excavated at Megiddo depicts a prince on
his cherubim throne; and an ivory model of a cherubim throne was found at the same site
dating to the Late Bronze Age. In these examples, the two cherubim support the throne
seat, their outer wings oriented upward, their inner wings appearing to meet beneath the
seat.
122

Still another possible example is the tenth-century BCE Taanach cultic stand,
whose uppermost level appears to depict a calf bearing the sun upon its back. The third
level, directly underneath, depicts two winged sphinxes or cherubim with vacant space
between them, which might perhaps signal the aniconic presence of an invisible God such
as Yahweh,
123
who, as we noted earlier, dwells above/between the cherubim.
124
It seems
fair to conclude that the cherubim throne in biblical texts appears not to differ
120Frank M. Cross, The Tabernacle: A Study from an Archaeological and Historical Approach, The
Biblical Archaeologist 10, no. 3 (1947) 55.
121Ibid., 62.
122For the sarcophagus of Ahiram of Byblos, see Pierre Montet, Byblos et l'gypte (Paris: P. Geuthner,
1928) 215-238; Montet, Byblos et l'gypt, 1929, pl. 131. For the Megiddo ivories, see Gordon Loud,
The Megiddo Ivories, Oriental Institute Publications 52 (Chicago: University of Chicago Oriental
Institute, 1939) pl. 4, 2a and 2b; pl. 4, 3. For a brief comparison of these in light of ancient Israel, see
also Mettinger, Dethronement of Sabaoth, 21-22.
123We must acknowledge, of course, that the absence of a visible deity in such an artifact is no guarantee
of an invisible deity's presence, but is only an inference. Nevertheless, the inference is a plausible one,
since (as we have noted above) similar artifacts do depict deities or monarchs supported by a seat,
platform, or raised wings.
124For a brief overview of the Taanach stand, see Patrick D. Miller, The Religion of Ancient Israel
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000) 43-45.
53
significantly from its broader ancient Near Eastern function.
Some scholars asserted that Deuteronomy's account of the Sinai revelation differs
from that found in Exodus 19 because in Deuteronomy 4, God's voice is described as
coming from Heaven, while only God's fire is visible on the mountain. Weinfeld writes
that this description shift[s] the center of gravity of the theophany from the visual to the
aural plane, thus underlining that God's habitation is solely in heaven and not at all on
earth.
125
However, Weinfeld states the case too strongly. It cannot be said that the gravity
of the theophany shifts so thoroughly from the visual to the aural plane, since even
Deuteronomy is quite clear that God's holy fire was visually present on Sinai.
The statement that God's voice came from heaven hardly contradicts the reality of
a divine presence on earth, manifested in fire, during the theophany; that deities are
present both on earth and in heaven without any contradiction was a common
understanding in the ancient world. Moreover, the appearance of the phrase '(', =,$
-'/#, the house of Yahweh your God, in Deut 23:19 indicates a clear belief that the
divine presence resides in the Temple
126
, since speaking of a deity's house was a
common way of referring to that deity's temple not only in Israel, but also in the broader
Near East.
127
In light of the above discussion, we may now return to our consideration of the
meaning of the Hebrew phrase, 0> (1> 2.>/, that has helped to occasion the foregoing
interpretations. It is salutary that the recent work of Sandra Richter, building on a point
first mentioned but not fully explored by Roland de Vaux, seems on linguistic terms to
125Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, 38.
126Pitknen, Central Sanctuary and Centralization of Worship in Ancient Israel, 48.
127Also Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 221.
54
have conclusively put to rest the traditional understanding of the Name as a semi-
independent abstraction in Deuteronomic thought. Richter's work involves a thorough
exploration of the meaning of the phrase >/ . 0> A1> 2 , which as we have previously
noted is traditionally translated to cause his name to dwell there. Her exploration
encompasses the phrase as employed not only in the Bible, but also its cognates in the
broader Near East.
128
Richter examines the link between the Hebrew >/ . 0> (1> 2 and
the Akkadian phrase "uma "ak nu, ! to place the name, as the phrases in question share
the same verbal root "kn. The Akkadian "uma "ak nu ! appears most notably, for our
purposes, in the Amarna Letters from the Late Bronze Age, but is not limited to them.
Richter's work will be discussed further below.
Roland de Vaux pioneered what now seems to be the correct understanding of >/
. 0> (1> 2 , one that reflects the sense of "establishing" or "placing" one's name as a sign
of possession;
129
this would be akin to inscribing one's name on something in order to
make clear to others that it is one's own.
130
If this is the meaning of the phrase, then no
abstraction or dilution of Yahweh's real presence need be implied in Deuteronomic
thought: the Name formula would simply declare Yahweh's ownership without saying
anything about the nature of his presence there. De Vaux's thesis was inspired primarily
by his reading of several Amarna Letters. EA 287:60-63 records the king of Jerusalem's
statement to the Pharaoh: "As the king has placed his name in Jerusalem forever (amur
128Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology.
129de Vaux, Le lieu que Yahv a choisi pour y tablir son nom, 221.
130Weinfeld, advocating the traditional idea that the use of the Name was intended to distance Yahweh
from his Temple via a more "abstract" theology, acknowledges after de Vaux that the "placing the
name" formula itself denotes possession on linguistic terms; however, he denies that Yahweh's real
presence in the Temple necessarily follows from this. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic
School, 194-195.
55
"arri "akan "um"u ina m t ! urusalim ana d ri" ! ), he cannot abandon it the land of
Jerusalem." Again in EA 288:5-7 we read, "Behold the king, my lord, has placed his
name (amur "arri b lia "akan # "um"u) at the rising of the sun and at the setting of the
sun."
131

In each case, the Akkadian phrase "akan "um"u, "[he] has established/placed his
name," functions as a straightforward possession formula. According to de Vaux, the
relationship between this Akkadian formula and the Deuteronomic one cannot be
avoided. Some scholars object to the correspondence of these phrases, noting that the
Akkadian verb appears in the G stem, which typically corresponds to the Qal in Hebrew
rather than to the Piel form, which appears in the Deuteronomic phrase.
132
The verb in the
Hebrew Qal is intransitive and means to dwell; in the Piel it means cause to dwell
because the Piel functions factitively with Qal intransitives, semantically signifying the
bringing about of a state.
133
In Akkadian, the verb "ak nu ! in the G stem is already
transitive, requiring no change of stem to achieve the meaning to place.
134
As noted
above, the cause to dwell translation in the Hebrew was one of the mainstays of support
for the idea that the Name is a diluted symbol of Yahweh, as opposed to Yahweh's real
presence.
De Vaux did not see the distinction of stem as important, however, noting that it is
131Translations found in Moran, The Amarna Letters, 328, 331; Akkadian in Knudzton, ed., Die el-
Amarna-Tafeln, 866-869.
132For example Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth, 56.
133Waltke and O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 400.
134For examples, see CAD !/1, "ak nu. ! For examples specific to temples and stelae, see especially "ak nu !
1a 1' and 2'. See also CAD N/1, nar A 3a. For a comprehensive treatment of "ak nu ! and its
occurrences, especially its occurrences with "uma, see Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the
Name Theology. For a survey of nars/kudurrus exclusively, see Kathryn E. Slanski, The Babylonian
Entitlement nars (kudurrus): A Study in Their Form and Function, American Schools of Oriental
Research Books 9 (Boston, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2003).
56
explained by the fact that the Hebrew Qal stem of 2.> does not have a transitive value,
and Hebrew must therefore render the verb in the Piel.
135
Thus de Vaux concluded that the
two formulae have the same sense: the Pharaoh possesses Jerusalem, and Yahweh
possesses the place of his choosing.
136
Similarly, Baruch Halpern observes in his article
on the Deuteronomic centralization formula that the Piel of 2.> seems to correspond in
Deuteronomic usage to the G stem of the Akkadian cognate.
137

The first full analysis of the possible correspondence between the Akkadian and
Hebrew phrases was conducted by S. Dean McBride in his doctoral dissertation, The
Deuteronomic Name Theology, in which he also argued that >/ . 0> (1> 2 does not mean
to cause his name to dwell there, but to put/place/establish his name there. Following
up on more extensive Near Eastern parallels using "uma "ak nu ! than de Vaux had
offered, McBride was able to argue even more conclusively for the linguistic
correspondence between the Hebrew and the Akkadian phrases despite the difference in
stem.
138
McBride concluded that >/ . 0> (1> 2 meant to place his name in
correspondence with the Akkadian usage, but was such an archaism for Hebrew that
outside Deuteronomy in the subsequent Deuteronomistic History (DtrH) the writers
replaced it with the less confusing 0> (1> 0(?/, to place his name there.
139

Unlike de Vaux, however, McBride did not maintain that the semantic
correspondence equaled a conceptual correspondence; he did not see the Name formula
135de Vaux, Le lieu que Yahv a choisi pour y tablir son nom, 221.
136"Les deux formules doivent avoir le mme sens: le Pharaon possde Jrusalem, Yahv possde le lieu
o il a choisi d'tre honor." Ibid., 221.
137Baruch Halpern, The Centralization Formula in Deuteronomy, Vetus Testamentum 31, no. 1 (January
1981): 31.
138McBride, The Deuteronomic Name Theology, 204-207.
139Ibid., 207.
57
as merely a signifier of ownership rather than of abstract divine absentia. Surprisingly,
even in light of his findings, McBride held to the traditional idea that the Name
represented a kind of hypostatic presence of Yahweh at the Temple, separate from
Yahweh's full presence.
140
Years later, in a further analysis of Akkadian texts, Sandra Richter convincingly
showed the Akkadian phrase "uma "ak nu ! not only to be relatively frequent, but also an
idiom
141
that was indeed used to demarcate possession by placing one's name upon
something one wished to call one's own. Specifically, Richter demonstrated that [f]irst
appearing in the late third millennium and regularly reappearing well into the Neo-
Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian eras, Akk "uma "ak nu ! is consistently associated with the
royal act of making inscriptions, the installation of inscribed monuments....In the earliest
stages of the Mesopotamian monumental tradition, to 'place one's name' was to inscribe
one's name upon a monument.
142
In the case of Yahweh, the monument in question was
the place he would choose to establish his Temple.
Richter argued that in order for the Hebrew writers to adopt this idiom to illustrate
Yahweh's relationship to the Temple, it was natural for them to render their Hebrew
cognate 2.> in the Piel stem, or the idiom would make no sense and lose its meaning, as
de Vaux had originally suggested. Bolstering this argument, Richter also points out, this
Deuteronomic phrase never appears in the Deuteronomistic History, which instead
replaces it with 0> (1> 0(?/ "to place his name there (1 Kgs 9:3, 11:36, 14:21, and 2
140Ibid., 209.
141Richter, The Place of the Name in Deuteronomy, 343-344.
142Richter, The Place of the Name in Deuteronomy, 344; idem, The Deuteronomistic History and the
Name Theology, 130-135.
58
Kgs 21:4, 7). The substitution suggests that the writers of the DtrH, who were well
aware of the semantic cargo of their borrowed idiom,
143
were translating that idiom to a
contemporary local audience that may not have understood it properly.
144
As Richter also
observes, the synonymous relationship between the two Hebrew phrases is further
indicated by the Tell Fakhariyeh votive inscription, which allows us to confirm that
Hebrew 0> (1> 0(?/ is morphologically equivalent to the Fakhariyeh's Aramaic
translation of the Akkadian idiom "uma "ak nu ! .
145
The linguistic correspondence is
resolved, and >/ . 2 is properly translated to place, in comportment with the idiomatic
usage.
Outside Deuteronomy, the coupling of >/ . 2 with name occurs only in Jer 7:12
and Neh 1:9, and both of those instances occur in the context of open references to
Deuteronomic terminology and strictures concerning the Temple.
146
In the case of Jer
7:12, God threatens to destroy his Temple as he did his former holy site at Shiloh in the
time of the Judges. In Neh 1:9, Nehemiah paraphrases God's speech to Moses from
Deuteronomy, making reference to the promised gathering of the scattered covenant
people back to the place where God has established his Name.
This argument is supported by the existence of a widely-used related formula that
employs #;:3, "it has been called," when speaking of a name's relationship to people or
objects. Wherever this verb form appears with the use of one's name, a sense of
ownership is always present: God's Name "is called" over the Temple, for instance, in 1
143Richter, The Place of the Name in Deuteronomy, 344.
144Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology, 95-98.
145Richter, The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology, 204. For broader discussion, see 45-49,
199-205; also noted in idem, The Place of the Name in Deuteronomy, 343.
146Halpern, The Centralization Formula in Deuteronomy, 31.
59
Kgs 8:43, Jer 7:10, 11, 14, 30, over Israel in Deut 28:10, and over the Ark in 2 Sam 6:2.
Possession is clearly implied in these representative instances. Indeed, in 2 Sam 6:2,
Yahweh is referenced by his full epithet, 0,$(;.* $<, =(#$9 '(', (Yahweh of hosts
who sits upon the cherubim), quite literally the cherubim atop the Ark. This fact serves
as a rather clear indication that the conjunction of God's Name as ownership and his true
enthroned presence necessitates no contradiction. Perhaps most tellingly, in 2 Sam 12:28,
Joab sends a message to David that if David does not come in and finish the capture of
Rabbah, Joab himself will do it and then "my [Joab's] name will be called over it (#;:3(
',/5 ,1>).
1 Kings 8 and the Temple's Exalted Status.
1 Kings 8 Solomon's dedicatory prayer at the Jerusalem Temple factors into
our discussion as a passage that has typically been interpreted to support the traditional
view of Name theology. This pericope has been the focus of a plethora of contentious
work centered on its compositional history and textual layers. However, since Noth first
recognized Solomon's speech in this chapter as one of the distinctive stylistic orations
that help bind together Deuteronomy and the entire Deuteronomistic History (Joshua-2
Kings)
147
, most scholars have agreed that the passage is, at least in its final form,
attributable to a redactor or redactors of the Deuteronomistic school.
148

147Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, 6-9, 93.
148Despite this agreement, a multiplicity of often divergent theories exists concerning the passage's date of
composition, or the date of any layers of composition a commentator may perceive. Some see the entire
passage as the unified work of one exilic Deuteronomist. See, e.g., Noth, The Deuteronomistic History,
6-9; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 35-36, 195-198; Van Seters, In Search of
History, 310-311. Others see it as a blend of a preexilic work supplemented by an exilic redactor. See,
e.g., Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 274-89; Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, 1-
43; Nelson, The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History, 69-73. Still others view it as a
60
However, scholars also commonly recognize that either the Deuteronomistic
writer in question incorporated prior Priestly source material into the passage, most
clearly through verse 13, or the Priestly source material was inserted after the
Deuteronomist had already composed Solomon's speech.
149
Up to v. 13, the text is often
taken to be mostly Priestly in origin due to its emphasis on the cultic materials introduced
into the newly-built Temple, the distinction between priests and Levites, the description
of the divine Glory (&($.) entering the Temple as the dwelling place of Yahweh, and the
statement that the Temple is to be the seat of your dwelling eternal (v. 13). The
immediate context in which this statement occurs, vv. 12-13, is usually thought to be an
excerpt from an ancient cultic song that predated the Priestly material of the preceding
verses, even if it were incorporated by a Priestly writer in theological agreement.
150

The lack of exact correspondence between the MT and the LXX of 1 Kings 8,
mostly in vv. 1-5, also serves as a reminder that the compositional history of the text may
be complicated.
151
Nevertheless, most interpreters have shown a certain degree of unity in
attributing the final redaction, at least, to the Neo-Babylonian period -- due mainly to
Solomon's emphasis on prayer rather than sacrifice, to his repeated refrain that Yahweh is
in heaven and cannot be contained by the Temple, and to the passage's alleged
mixture of exilic editions and additions. See, e.g., Rudolf Smend, Das Gesetz und die Vlker : ein
Beitrag zur deuteronomistischen Redaktionsgeschichte, in Probleme biblischer Theologie (Munich:
Kaiser Verlag, 1971), 494-509; Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth, 38.
149Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House, 262-265.
150Mordechai Cogan, 1 Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 10
(New York: Doubleday, 2001), 291; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 195; Baruch
A. Levine, On the Presence of God in Biblical Religion, in Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory
of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, ed. Jacob Neusner (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 81; Richter, The
Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology, 76.
151Since the LXX version is shorter, it was once thought that the LXX preserved an earlier Dtr version
before the Priestly introduction was written; however, Hurowitz has shown that the LXX shortens Dtr
elements as well as Priestly ones. Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House, 262-266; Cogan, 1
Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, 291.
61
downplaying of the Temple's role.
152
These aspects of the passage, however, merit another
look.
The temple theology of 1 Kings 8 is important for our purposes for obvious
reasons. The passage, as noted above, is traditionally understood as the foremost
representative text for the alleged Deuteronomistic denial of Yahweh's presence in the
Temple and diminishment of the Temple's role in Israelite religious life. The Temple's
role is thus relegated, as Noth first put it, to little more than a place toward which one
turns in prayer.
153
Even de Vaux, who first argued for the Name only as a sign of
ownership that did not of necessity indicate any abstractions at all, thought it necessary to
concede that an abstract Name theology might exist in the Deuteronomistic History,
though not in Deuteronomy proper. De Vaux believed 1 Kings 8 was the clearest signpost
of such an abstract theology, which removed Yahweh from his Temple.
154

The interpretation of 1 Kings 8 relates to my larger purpose in this study because
of the pericope's perceived role as the prime example of the abstract, symbolic Name
theology (as traditionally understood in past scholarship). This study advances the idea
that in the new reality Ezekiel and his fellow Judeans experience, Ezekiel portrays the
Glory in a way that counters the Deuteronomistic view of the chosen place as the only
earthly locus for God's presence and conduit for divine activity. In this chapter, I have
sought to show, in agreement with de Vaux and Richter, that past scholarship has
misunderstood Name theology as a Deuteronomistic move to divorce Yahweh's real
152For a contrasting view, which considers all of 1 Kings 8 to be the work of a preexilic Deuteronomist of
Josiah's time, see Halpern, The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History, 168-171.
153Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, 94.
154de Vaux, Le lieu que Yahv a choisi pour y tablir son nom, 225f.
62
presence from the Temple and to downgrade the Temple to symbolic status only. I have
maintained that Deuteronomistic theology does understand Yahweh's real presence to
inhabit the Temple, and goes still further by establishing that Temple as the only place
God will dwell on Earth. How 1 Kings 8 understands the Temple's role, therefore, is
important for our comprehension of Deuteronomistic theology.
While 1 Kings 8 includes the purportedly ancient and poetic lines of v. 13, I have
surely built for you a magisterial house, the seat of your dwelling eternal,
155
Solomon's
subsequent statements appear to contradict these words, asserting that while the Temple
bears Yahweh's Name, Yahweh cannot be contained by the Temple, and thus hears
prayers while dwelling in heaven (8:27-53). Such apparent variety on both theological
and terminological grounds has lent support to the hypothesis that this chapter was knit
together from disparate sources.
Nevertheless, the text's purported internal contradiction is not so clear as has
commonly been supposed, nor is the assumption that 1 Kings 8 represents an abstract
theology of the Name. We ought not regard Solomon's Deuteronomistic speech following
v. 13 as so completely divorced from the more traditional theology of the immediately
preceding verses. The Deuteronomistic portion of Solomon's speech repeatedly states that
the Temple was built for Yahweh's Name, a place for his Name to be. As we have already
seen, however, the use of the divine Name in such a context signals ownership; the
indication of ownership in itself proves nothing with respect to whether the owner in
155Some suggest translating this "a dais for your eternal throne," building upon Ugaritic parallels and the
Akkadian equivalent parakku. In any event, the sense is not unduly altered. See Frank Moore Cross and
David Noel Freedman, The Song of Miriam, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 14, no. 4 (October
1955): 250; Cogan, 1 Kings, 281; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 195.
63
this case, Yahweh is present or not. One cannot claim that the mere use of the Name in
conjunction with the Temple signifies that Yahweh is not present at the Temple; indeed,
the evidence we have discussed thus far gives us good reason to think the Deuteronomist
did believe Yahweh to be present in the Temple, even if it could not contain his
wholeness.
The question of whether the Temple contained Yahweh lies at the root, in fact,
of the common interpretation of Deuteronomistic Name theology in this passage. To wit,
in 1 Kgs 8:27 Solomon declares to Yahweh, Indeed, will God truly dwell upon the
earth? Yea, the heavens and the highest heaven ( 0,1>' ,1>( 0,1>') cannot contain
you (-(/./.,); how much less this House that I have built. Solomon further states that
when the people direct prayers toward this Temple, God will hear them in heaven.
Taken together, these Solomonic statements have been the source for the claim, and in de
Vaux's case the concession, that 1 Kings 8 and, by extension, Deuteronomistic theology
in general removes Yahweh from his Temple and places him solely in heaven. Moshe
Weinfeld, for example, asserts, The idea that God's habitation is in heaven is here
articulated most emphatically in order to eradicate the belief that the Deity sat enthroned
between the cherubim in the temple.... The deuteronomic editor is clearly disputing the
older view implied by the ancient song that opens the prayer (vv. 12-13).
156
Yet Solomon's declaration that the highest heaven cannot contain Yahweh, and
that the Temple cannot either, is hardly a proclamation that Yahweh has distanced himself
from his Temple. In fact, if one interprets the statement that the Temple cannot contain
Yahweh as proof that Yahweh is not in the Temple at all, then one ought to be consistent
156Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 195.
64
and extend the same interpretation to the heavens. Solomon does say, after all, that even
the highest heaven cannot contain Yahweh yet no one, to my knowledge, has argued
that Solomon does not think Yahweh is in heaven.
To say that neither heaven nor the Temple can contain Yahweh is not the same
thing as saying Yahweh is not present in heaven or in the Temple at all. The point
Solomon elucidates is that God remains too vast to be entirely contained anywhere,
including the heavens.
157
The example of Is 6:1 is instructive. Here, the prophet
experiences a vision of God in which God is seated on a high and lofty throne, and the
hems of his robes are filling the Temple ( (,/(>( #?3( 0; #4."/5 $>, ,3&#"=# '#;#(
/.,''"=# 0,#/1). This vision conceptualizes God as so massive in size that only the
bottom of his robes fit in his Temple, with the rest of him extending up to heaven where
he is attended by seraphim.
Further, the use of the verb /./. (translated contain) in 1 Kings 8:27 is
interesting in that in most cases in the Bible, it denotes to sustain, to nourish, in the
sense of providing sustenance or support.
158
Only in Solomon's Temple speech (including
2 Chr 2:5 and 6:18, which use that text as their source) and Jeremiah 20:9 does this verb
likely denote contain. In the case of Jeremiah, the prophet is speaking of how he is not
able to contain the word of Yahweh within him, to stop himself from giving voice to it; it
can only burst forth from his spirit where it burns like fire. In Solomon's speech, it is even
157So also Jon Levenson, who remarks: But the proof that the Temple cannot contain God is that even the
uttermost reaches of the heavens cannot contain him. The disclaimer distinguishes Temple from cosmos
only by placing the same limitation on both. The Temple is less infinite, so to speak, than the world.
Since the latter cannot contain God, a fortiori the former cannot. Jon D. Levenson, The Temple and
the World, Journal of Religion 64, no. 3 (July 1984): 289.
158These instances are Gen 45:11; Gen 47:12; Gen 50:21; 2 Sam 19:33; 2 Sam 19:34; 2 Sam 20:3; 1 Kgs
4:7; 1 Kgs 5:7; 1 Kgs 17:4, 9; 1 Kgs 18:4; 1 Kgs 18:13; 1 Kgs 20:27; Zech 11:16; Mal 3:2; Ps 55:23; Ps
112:5; Prov 18:14; Ruth 4:15; Neh 9:21.
65
possible to imagine a double entendre, to the effect that neither the Temple nor even the
highest heaven can sustain, nourish, or contain God. In any event, the point Solomon
attempts to make is that God is too vast to fit completely anywhere; the point is not that
the Temple is thus reduced to near insignificance. On the contrary, Solomon is clear that
the Temple is the one and only place on Earth that serves as the conduit between Yahweh
and the people. Indeed, the entire pericope is devoted not to the Temple's reduced
significance, but rather to its overriding importance.
Solomon's emphasis on the Temple as the location for prayer also in no way
downgrades its importance, as scholarship has traditionally held; rather, it increases it.
Within the literary setting of this entire pericope, Solomon's dedicatory speech is meant
to inaugurate the very beginning of the Temple's existence. Within the literary setting,
there has heretofore been no particular place toward which the people were instructed to
direct prayer. Yet now there is and not only a place, but the only place, at least in
Deuteronomistic theology. Repeatedly, the Deuteronomist has Solomon declare that when
and if the people direct their prayers toward the Temple, then and only then will Yahweh
hear their prayers from his throne or habitation (=$>) in heaven. As Gary Knoppers has
aptly observed, The people are to appeal to their heavenly deity by recourse to the house
built for his name on earth.... The petitions within Solomon's prayer dramatize the
Temple's role as the site at which Yhwh makes himself accessible to his people through
prayer.
159
One should acknowledge that in the ancient setting, there is no evidence that
prayer was considered a demythologized form of worship or somehow detached from
159Gary N. Knoppers, Prayer and Propaganda : Solomon's Dedication of the Temple and the
Deuteronomist's Program, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 57, no. 2 (April 1995): 236, 239.
66
sacrifice.
If anything, the centralization of prayer advocated in this Deuteronomistic
passage enhances the power of the Temple, and does not devalue it.
160
The Temple here is
the sole legitimate center of human-divine interaction: if the people direct prayers toward
Yahweh's Temple, then Yahweh will hear them in heaven, because his Temple is the site
at which he has chosen to be accessed. As Baruch Levine states it, To put it in
technological terms: God's power is produced in heaven, but it is distributed from the
temple.
161

Our considerations leave us with a stronger possibility than is usually
acknowledged that much of 1 Kings 8 may pre-date the Babylonian Exile, and stands
very much in line with the late monarchic theology surrounding Hezekiah's and Josiah's
centralizing reforms.
162
Yet even the subset of the chapter most likely composed during
the Neo-Babylonian period, in which Solomon's seventh and final petition (vv. 46-51)
envisions a situation of exile and defeat, enhances rather than diminishes the Temple's
importance.
163
Solomon requests of Yahweh that he might hear and grant their prayer
when his people, who may in the future be held captive in the land of their enemy
because of their sins, pray in repentance in the direction of the Temple. Such a statement
indicates that even during the Babylonian exile, if indeed such was the time in which this
petition was composed, the Temple site persisted as the supreme and only place for
160See also ibid., 233, 247.
161Levine, On the Presence of God in Biblical Religion, 82.
162See also Halpern, The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History, 168-171.
163To this effect, Richard Friedman goes against the scholarly grain and finds it unlikely that these verses
were composed during the exile, as is usually supposed from their descriptions of what would have
been exilic conditions. Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, 21.
67
divine-human interaction in Deuteronomistic theology even when it no longer existed.
In the words of Knoppers, this seems to be not a desacralization of the Temple (as Noth
and those following him have assumed) but rather a resacralization; not anti-temple but
pro-temple.
164

Finally, 1 Kings 8 stands together as the final work of a redactor either the
Deuteronomistic writer who composed Solomon's speech in the first place, or a
subsequent editor -- who chose to place at least two sources side by side. An intent lies
behind such a decision. Taking the text on its own terms, Knoppers has convincingly
illustrated the presence of literary rings that suggest the depiction of events preceding
and succeeding Solomon's prayer are integral to the deuteronomistic presentation and
function structurally as an interpretive key to the prayer itself.
165
Hence, the inclusion of
the material through v. 13 might in fact be deliberately placed as part of the larger
purpose of the entire pericope to promote the prestige of the Temple in the view of the
Deuteronomist. Knoppers therefore argues that the magisterial theophany that precedes
Solomon's speech could be purposefully included because it, as well as the poetic lines
that serve as its culmination in vv. 12-13, underscores the sanctity of the new
sanctuary.
166
And such a goal, as we have seen, may well have been in perfect accord
with the Deuteronomist's intentions. The distinctive sources at work here thus seem to be
164Gary N. Knoppers, Yhwh's Rejection of the House Built for His Name: On the Significance of Anti-
temple Rhetoric in the Deuteronomistic History, in Essays on Ancient Israel in Its Near Eastern
Context, ed. Yairah Amit et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 225, 228-229.
165Knoppers, Prayer and Propaganda , 232.
166Knoppers, Prayer and Propaganda , 241; similarly Cogan, who notes, "Considering that the
inauguration of the Temple was a foundational moment in the history of the Israelite cult, it is not
surprising to find that several traditions converge at this juncture, each underscoring its particular
perspective on the event." 1 Kings, 291. Cogan, however, sees the Priestly source material at the
beginning of the chapter as having been added after the Deuteronomistic prayer of Solomon was
written, rather than having been included as one of the Deuteronomist's original sources.
68
functioning in tandem with one another rather than at cross purposes.

For Deuteronomy and equally for the Deuteronomistic History, the question of
God's presence on earth centered on the place God had chosen to claim as the special
location at which he could be accessed on earth by humans. Certainly, there was nothing
inherent about Jerusalem to suggest that the chosen place had to be within that city. As
Patrick Miller points out, the place is by God's choice alone: there is an appropriate
place where the Lord may be found and worshiped, but that place is not arbitrary and
anywhere. In the Lord's order, the Lord will choose and reveal the locus of dwelling and
encounter with human life and with God's people.
167

After Jerusalem was chosen, however, a ideology of security developed among
the populace; many Israelites believed that because of Yahweh's election of Jerusalem
and the Temple on Mount Zion, they could rest in the assurance of inviolability. Such a
belief likely obtained from the time of the Temple's construction, and is evidenced in the
Hebrew Bible in various places. For example, faith in Jerusalem's inviolability appears
clearly in Psalm 46, which proclaims that since God has the holy city as his residence, its
inhabitants shall never fear and the city shall never fall.
168
Psalms 78:68ff and 132:13ff
speak of Yahweh's having chosen Zion just as Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic
History speak of Yahweh's choosing the special place to establish his Name.
169
Psalm
48, too, extols God's city as invulnerable to enemy onslaught; verse 9 even suggests
that the city shall be established (2(.) forever.
167Patrick D Miller, Deuteronomy, Interpretation (Louisville: J. Knox Press, 1990), 132.
168See also Levine, On the Presence of God in Biblical Religion, 81-82.
169See also Mayes, Deuteronomy, 223-224; Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition, 96.
69
While psalms are notoriously difficult to date, we can be relatively certain that
faith in Jerusalem's eternal security had already become well-established among some
segment of the populace by the eighth century BCE, when the prophet Micah railed
against the idea that Zion enjoyed eternal protection regardless of the people's behavior
and faithfulness (Micah 3:9-12). Jeremiah, too, targets proponents of this idea in the
seventh century. Jer 7:4 specifically singles out those who say, the Temple of Yahweh,
the Temple of Yahweh in the false belief that this will ensure the city's safety; the
prophet deems this belief to be based on words of deception ( ;:>' ,;$&). Again in
verse 10, Jeremiah emphatically proclaims that those who stand before Yahweh at the
Temple and say we are safe ((3/93) are gravely mistaken.
2 Sam 7:10-16, the famous text in which Yahweh promises that both David's line
and his kingship throne shall endure forever (despite temporary periods of chastisement)
bears further witness to the strength of faith in Jerusalem's ultimately protected status,
and is associated with the selection of the place for the Temple.
170
That sentiment is again
revealed in Psalm 89. Indeed, 2 Kgs 8:19 states that Yahweh was not willing to destroy
Judah, despite the wickedness of its kings, because of his promise to David. Again, 2 Kgs
19:32-34 reports that King Sennacherib of Assyria would not breach Jerusalem's walls,
for my [Yahweh's] sake and the sake of David my servant ( ,&$5 &(& 251/( ,251/).
Lam 4:12 declares that no one on Earth had believed that Jerusalem's gates would ever be
breached. Despite all this, however, Deuteronomistic theology did not espouse a belief in
unconditional security. Deuteronomy, most notably Deuteronomy 28, and the entire
170For more on the selection of the Temple's place, see again Vanderhooft, Dwelling Beneath the
Sacred Place, in Journal of Biblical Literature 118:4 (1999) 625-633.
70
witness of the Deuteronomistic History insist that one must adhere to Yahweh's word in
order to have continued blessing in the land, whether one be king or ordinary citizen.
Nevertheless, Deuteronomistic theology was highly traditional in the sense that it
accorded Jerusalem and its Temple a status over against other locations as God's place for
dwelling on Earth. In 2 Kgs 21:7, Yahweh proclaims that he has placed his Name in
Jerusalem forever (0/5/). Notably, Deuteronomistic theology appears to interpret the
Exile as the people being cast away (-/>) from Yahweh's presence, which remains in
his own chosen land; the people leave, but Yahweh does not. We see this idea expressed
in 2 Kgs 24:20 and Jer 7:15.
For Deuteronomistic theology, God could dwell both in heaven and on Earth; but
the method of God's dwelling on Earth was highly prescribed and restricted, by God's
own choice. God's dwelling among humans was prescribed for one place only, the place
where God would choose to establish his Name -- so much so that even prayers must be
directed at that unique place in order for God to hear them in heaven and act. I would also
assert that even if one adheres to the traditional understanding of Name theology and
affirms that Deuteronomy in fact removes Yahweh, partially or completely, from his
Temple and relocates him in heaven, one must still concede that in the Deuteronomistic
worldview the Temple remains the only legitimate place of God's contact on Earth.
In response to the question of whether God resides on earth among humans,
Deuteronomistic theology answers that if God does so, it must be only at a place where
he has set his Name. That place is unique and singular; and God's Name must there be
designated. Only at such a predesignated locus of divine-human interaction can people
71
consider God to be truly in their midst, and only from there will God hear prayer and
send forth his response although that response, channeled through the Temple, can
reach its recipient wherever he or she might be. As we shall see, Ezekiel diverges from
this aspect of Deuteronomistic theology through the vehicle of the Glory, which reveals
itself again in a way that recalls the wilderness, according to the Priestly tradition, before
the Tabernacle's commissioning at Sinai.
72
Chapter Three
The Spaces the Glory of God Inhabits
This chapter considers the ways in which the Priestly and non-Priestly texts of the
Hebrew Bible imagine the Glory (&($.) of Yahweh in terms of the spaces the Glory
inhabits on Earth, including to what extent such spaces are sanctified and mediated.
171

Priestly writings do not explicitly refer to the presence of Yahweh on Earth except by
means of the Glory. To initiate the discussion, I will examine the question of cult
centralization and the Tabernacle in the Priestly texts; in the process, I will discuss the
manner of the Glory's dwelling in the Tabernacle and the attendant question of Yahweh's
enthronement. This examination will, in turn, entail some preliminary consideration of
the elusive dating of the Priestly work, although it must be noted that it is not the purpose
of the present monograph to resolve such dating, which will likely always remain
inconclusive.
172
Our investigations in this chapter will allow us to view Ezekiel's
presentation of the Glory of Yahweh against the background of other biblical
presentations of the Glory, in order to understand the nature and significance of Ezekiel's
particular portrayal.
171With the term mediate, I refer to the physical precincts that delineate the sanctuary in which the Glory
dwells (i.e., Tabernacle/Tent of Meeting or Temple).
172For the purpose of this work, although I recognize the lack of consensus on the delineations of P, I
broadly follow Noth's model as expressed in Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions, trans.
Bernhard W. Anderson (Chico, CA.: Scholars Press, 1981). While there is certainly room for
disagreement with Noth's outline of P, the Priestly texts that will factor into our concern with respect to
the Glory are not the subjects of vigorous dispute.
73
A Sketch of the Tabernacle and Some Possible Ramifications for Dating the Priestly
Writings.
As has long been recognized, there is a distinction in terminology and in concept
between the Priestly writings on the one hand, and JE and D on the other, with respect to
the earthly structure provided for God before the existence of the Temple. P refers to this
structure most often as the Tabernacle (2.>1), though occasionally also as the Tent of
Meeting ( &5(1 /'#). Menahem Haran states that P employs the terms
indiscriminately,
173
while Jacob Milgrom contends that although P terminology does not
signify two different structures, the Tent of Meeting ( &5(1 /'#) refers to the entire
structure while Tabernacle (2.>1) refers in a more restricted sense to the sanctified
appurtenances of the Tent. Milgrom comments, P consistently uses the term mi"k n ! to
refer to the sancta, the Tabernacle structure, or the inner tent curtains....It thereby
distinguishes between the mi"k n ! and the " hel $ , the upper, nonsacred tent
curtains...
174
Even Milgrom, however, notes that at times P employs 2.>1 to refer to the
entire Tent structure (Ex 26:30; 27:9; 40:22, 24), but adds that in these instances P still
primarily intends the sacred part (minus the upper curtains).
175

Baruch Levine, on the other hand, like Haran, suggests that P uses the two terms
to refer to the same structure and institution without distinction. However, Levine goes on
to note that although P heavily focuses on the sacrificial function of its Tabernacle/Tent,
in Num 7:89 it still notes the oracular function once held by the Tent of Meeting in JE
173Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 272.
174Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 3
(New York: Doubleday, 1991), 36.
175Ibid.
74
tradition, in which the Tent resided outside the Israelite encampment, and P ascribes this
function to the Tabernacle without any concern.
176
In this regard, Levine points to the
frequent blending of traditions in P, explaining: Priestly writers had a penchant for
combining discrete terms of reference to produce composite terminology, and in so doing
they implied synonymous meanings. This was undoubtedly part of their effort to embrace
all of the acceptable traditions on Israelite origins and to blend them with one another.
177

Indeed, the JE and D sources refer to the structure only as the Tent of Meeting (
&5(1 /'#), and do not conceive of God residing there constantly, as P does with respect
to its Tabernacle. Menahem Haran puts it colorfully when he observes that the
Tabernacle, and for that matter the Temple, "serves as a hiding-abode for the deity," while
the Tent of Meeting "is basically a hiding-place from the deity." He goes on to note that
"the fundamental distinction is already evident in the very names of the two institutions:
the word 2.>1, tabernacle, indicates the place where God 2.>, dwells, i.e. his abode;
whereas &5(1 /'# ....describes the place to which he comes at an appointed time....
178

Indeed, in JE and D there are in fact two structures: the Tent of Meeting which
served as the place for Moses and the priests to consult the deity, but which served no
priestly or regular ritual purpose,
179
and the separate tent that housed the Ark of the
Covenant. The latter took its position at the center of the camp, whereas the former was
located outside the camp. In P, however, there is but the one structure, to which both the
names Tabernacle and Tent of Meeting apply. This structure contains the Ark in the view
176Levine, Numbers 1-20, 129-130.
177Ibid., 131.
178Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 269.
179Ibid., 271.
75
of the Priestly writings; indeed, for P it is inconceivable that the Ark could ever be
separated from the sacred Tabernacle.
180
This is of course quite different from JE, which,
as I mentioned, portrays the Ark in its own tent separate from the Tent of Meeting; for
this non-Priestly tradition it was David who first combined the two tents.
181

It is also very different from accounts in the books of Samuel, which portray the
Ark as having been carried by Israelite soldiers going into battle. In this way, Yahweh
was thought to accompany his warriors into battle; Yahweh's absence could spell doom
for the army. When the Philistines absconded with the Ark to their camp in 1 Samuel 4,
the Israelites were defeated in combat, prompting Phinehas' wife -- before dying from
childbirth -- to name her newborn son &($.,#, Where is the Glory? (1 Sam 4:21). With
this name she commemorated the fact that God's Glory (&($.) had been removed from
Israel's midst with the capture of the Ark by the Philistines, an event which had led to the
death of her husband Phinehas.
182
Since Julius Wellhausen,
183
it has been a common recognition that the Tabernacle
as portrayed in the Priestly writings is intended to be a representation of the Temple --
although within the literary setting of the text, it is the precursor to the Temple, having
been constructed at Sinai.
184
Wellhausen believed the Tabernacle to be only a literary
180Ibid., 200. We shall return to this point below in discussion of cult centralization in P.
181Ibid., 270.
182So also Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, 104.
183Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, Scholars Press Reprints and Translations
Series (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994).
184Contrast the view of Terence Fretheim, who argues the Priestly school is in fact anti-temple and uses
the portability of the Tabernacle's tent structure to polemicize the permanence of the Temple, the
destruction of which in Fretheim's estimation helped motivate P's portrayal of the Tabernacle. Fretheim
also holds that the Priestly document has ties to a long-standing school of thought that originally
opposed the building of the First Temple. Contrast also Richard Friedman, who draws no distinction
between a literary or symbolic Tabernacle in P and an actual historical Tabernacle which once dwelt
within the Temple and which P depicted. Terence E. Fretheim, Priestly Document: Anti-Temple?,
Vetus Testamentum 18, no. 3 (July 1968): 313-329; Richard E. Friedman, The Tabernacle in the
76
symbol to represent the Second Temple and invest it with Mosaic authority, and the
Priestly writings to have been composed during the Persian period long after the First
Temple had fallen. Wellhausen believed that P presumed cult centralization -- indeed the
Tabernacle is the only place at which sacrifices are performed in P without needing to
spell it out as a law, as does D. Because P does not need to spell this out, argued
Wellhausen, a dating in the Second Temple period when cult centralization was taken for
granted is supported.
185
There are still many scholars, particularly in Europe, who argue
for an exclusively exilic or even postexilic date for P. Rainer Albertz, for example,
remarks:
...[T]he Priestly document or the Priestly recension of the Pentateuch (P) should be
dated in the fifth century, not as early as the sixth century. At best the beginnings of the
Priestly tradition (Sabbath, circumcision) go back to the late exilic period...It follows
that the Priestly legislation, especially the so-called Holiness Code (Lev 17-26),
likewise dates from the Persian era.
186

Such an opinion denies the Priestly writings any claim at all to the traditions in
place before the Exile and is, in my view, off the mark. However, quite a few scholars
have argued convincingly for P's composition before the Exile while Solomon's Temple
still stood.
187
The fall of the Temple to the Babylonians is one of the reasons that some
Temple, Biblical Archaeologist 43, no. 4 (Fall 1980): 241-248.
185Note, however, the objection of Friedman, who (accurately, in my view) remarks, In focusing
continually on the Tabernacle, P protests a bit too much for one to accept Wellhausen's claim that P
presumes an accomplished centralization. On the contrary, the Priestly writer(s) seem to be fighting for
the same objective [centralization] as that of the Deuteronomists. Richard Elliott Friedman, The Exile
and Biblical Narrative: The Formation of the Deuteronomistic and Priestly Works, Harvard Semitic
Monographs 22 (Chico, Calif: Scholars Press, 1981), 65.
186Albertz, Israel in Exile, 204. Albertz notes that in this opinion he follows the work of Erhard Blum,
Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch, BZAW 189 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990).
187Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile; Haran, Temples and
Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 10-12, 140-147, 193-194; Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the
Deuteronomic School; Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, 61; Avi Hurvitz, Dating the
Priestly Source in Light of the Historical Study of Biblical Hebrew a Century after Wellhausen,
Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 100 (1988): 88-100; Avi Hurvitz, Evidence of
Language in Dating the Priestly Code: A Linguistic Study in Technical Idioms and Terminology,
Revue Biblique 81, no. 1 (January 1974): 24-56; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22: A New Translation
77
scholars have placed P in monarchic times. That is to say, why would P have invested
such significance in the Tabernacle portraying it as the only dwelling place of God's
Glory, the only housing for the Ark of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments, and the
Urim and Thummim -- if the writers lived in a time when the Temple that had housed
these objects had been razed? The Second Temple did not, as far as we know, contain any
of these objects.
188
Yehezkel Kaufmann, for example, has raised this objection of the lack
of correspondence between the Tabernacle and the Second Temple, and has incorporated
it into his argument (which we will encounter below) that P precedes the Babylonian
Exile.
Richard Friedman, too, observes that the sacred objects noted above belong
exclusively to the First Temple. Their crucial place in the Priestly writings tied
inseparably to the Tabernacle fortifies the notion that a large portion of P is a product of
the First Temple era.
189
Haran raises still other arguments in favor of a late First Temple
period dating of P, specifically at the time of Hezekiah's cult reforms, but before those of
Josiah, which Haran identifies by contrast with the Deuteronomic reform. Indeed, Haran
postulates that P was likely the basis for Hezekiah's reform, or at least that the two are
inextricably linked.
190
Among Haran's many reasons for placing P in this period is the fact that P
describes the Tabernacle with only one court, which reflects Temple conditions prior to
with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 3A (New York: Doubleday, 2000).
188Indeed, see Jeremiah 3:16, which implies that the Ark is not a factor in the future restoration of Israel.
Consider also Ezekiel, who conspicuously makes no mention of the Ark in his plans for the future
utopian, restored Temple.
189Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, 61. This is also the view of Haran, Temples and Temple-
Service in Ancient Israel, 8.
190For a detailed and, in my view, plausible exposition of this assertion that P served as the impetus for
Hezekiah's reform, see Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 140-147.
78
Manasseh, who reigned in the seventh century BCE. Haran notes that Ezekiel's vision of
the restored Temple includes two courts, which was in fact the reality in the late
monarchic period.
191

Similarly, Haran points to the Tabernacle's lack of =(.>/, chambers, which
appeared in the Jerusalem Temple's courts only after Hezekiah; Ezekiel's Temple
description, by contrast, takes the courts for granted.
192
In addition, he argues, P speaks
only of a bronze altar for the Tabernacle court, which served as the Temple's primary altar
only until Ahaz, who removed it to the northern gate and replaced it with the Damascene
model in the eighth century BCE. Ezekiel speaks of a bronze altar only at a northern gate,
with his primary altar apparently being the one (or similar to the one) installed by
Ahaz.
193
Still, many scholars prefer to date P in the Neo-Babylonian period or later, often
basing this date to a large degree on the mobile nature of the Tabernacle, and on P's use of
the verb 2.>
194
with reference to the manner in which the Glory resides in the Tabernacle.
The verb in the Hebrew Bible denotes to dwell, reside, but when interpreted
specifically in relation to the Tabernacle, scholars have often coupled it with a notion of
mobile impermanence -- and hence a sublimation of God's presence to a sort of
attenuated visitation, rather than a true dwelling, on Earth.
195
Though a survey of the
biblical usage of this verb does not support the notion of an inherently impermanent or
191Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 193.
192Ibid.
193Ibid., 194.
194For further discussion on this root, please see Ch. 2.
195For a discussion of this notion of sublimation among scholars with respect to the Deuteronomic Name
theology, see Ch. 2.
79
mobile dwelling,
196
it has often still been interpreted that way with respect to the Priestly
writings, in comportment with the pre-existing view that P dates no earlier than the Neo-
Babylonian period.
Frank Moore Cross pioneered the argument that P uses 2.> in a technical sense
in order to revive an archaic Canaanite meaning, to tent/to tabernacle (in some
impermanent or inherently mobile sense). Thus for Cross, with its exclusive use of this
verb, P self-consciously rejects the verb $>,,
197
to dwell, to sit, which non-Priestly
writings often (but not exclusively) use to describe Yahweh's sitting atop the cherubim of
the Ark or in the Temple.
198
The verb $>, is associated, as we saw in Chapter Two, with
the classic enthronement epithet 0,$(;.' $>, =#$9 '(',, Yahweh of Hosts who
sits/dwells [upon] the cherubim.
However, 2.> does not connote any sense of intrinsic mobility or impermanence
in the Bible, or even necessarily any sense of greater mobility or impermanence in
comparison to $>,.
199
In fact, in many places where 2.> is used, its sense is explicitly one
of enduring dwelling with no limiting quality. To this effect we see, for example, 2 Sam
7:10,
200
Isa 34:17, Ps 37:27, Ps 37:29, Ps 102:29, and Job 26:5. Further, while $>, may
be the preferred technical verb outside of P to refer to Yahweh's enthronement,
especially upon cherubim, this does not change the fact that $>, and 2.> still appear to
be used interchangeably to describe God's presence in his Temple and in Jerusalem. For
196For a concise overview of this reality, see Mettinger, Dethronement of Sabaoth, 90-94.
197Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 299, 322-323.
198See, e.g., 1 Sam 4:4, 2 Sam 6:2, 2 Kgs 19:15, Isa 37:16, Ps 80:2, and Ps 99:1.
199So also Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, 97.
200For an incisive treatment of this verse, see particularly Vanderhooft, Dwelling Beneath the Sacred
Place: A Proposal for Reading 2 Sam 7:10.
80
example, 1 Kgs 8:12, Isa 8:18, Joel 4:17, Ps 135:21, Ezek 43:7, 9, Zech 2:14, and Zech
8:3 all employ 2.> to speak of God's majestic presence in Jerusalem, Mount Zion, or in
the midst of the people Israel, with no indication of any kind of limitation on the nature of
the presence. The most striking example could be Ps 68:17, which speaks of Mount Zion
as, the mountain that God desired for his dwelling ((=$>/), where Yahweh surely will
dwell (2.>,) forever. The parallelism in this verse leaves no doubt of the equation
between the enduring quality of dwelling expressed by the two juxtaposed roots $>,
and 2.>. The noun 2.>1 also does not by necessity designate a temporary or mobile
dwelling-place, since it can be used to refer even to a rock-hewn tomb or a grave, as seen
in Isa 22:16 and Ps 49:12.
Thus, the use of $>, in certain phrases or passages referring to God's
enthronement cannot alone justify the assertion that the Priestly writings impute a
definition of intrinsic impermanence or a kind of visitation quality to 2.>. With the
acknowledgment that 2.> carries no such connotation of a limited presence in the Bible,
Cross points to the possible connotation of such in the ancient Canaanite context, where
usage of the verb was connected to the tents and tent-shrines of nomads.
201
He states that
it is in this sense that P uses the root, and that P thus archaizes to the much older
Canaanite meaning.
202
This claim arises from the fact, already noted, that P only uses 2.>
and not $>, when describing Yahweh in his Tabernacle -- as opposed to some alternation
between the two, which is evidenced in the texts outside of P.
However, the question then becomes why the Priestly writers would have self-
201Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 299.
202Ibid., 245, 299.
81
consciously resurrected a defunct archaic meaning for a word that Cross calls the
keyword of their [the Priestly circle's] theological vocabulary.
203
If 2.> were indeed to
be construed as an important keyword, one may legitimately ask why the Priestly circle
would choose to express a significant concept by assigning to its keyword a connotation
the word had not possessed by all other biblical accounts in hundreds of years. One
may legitimately ask whether such a connotation would thus have been lost on any
intended audience the Priestly writers may have had.
204
The Priestly writers' proposed
rejection of the common meaning of 2.>, to dwell, and the re-appropriation of the
archaic nuance of mobility for 2.>, to the exclusion of $>,, signifies in Cross's argument
that P wished to avoid $>, as too literal. With this strategy, P would thus wish to avoid
imputing:
a doctrine of the concrete abode of Yahweh in his shrine....The entire cultic
paraphernalia and cultus was designed to express and overcome the problem of the holy,
transcendent God visiting his pervasively sinful people....Indeed the agonizing problem
of the Exile, reflected in a variety of literature, and perhaps most exquisitely in P, was
precisely the divine hiddenness and Israel's sinfulness.
205
Yet P's apparent preference for 2.> need not mandate a re-appropriation of an
archaic and possibly long-obscure meaning over against $>,. Even if there were such a
preference (and it must be admitted that no one may make a claim with certainty either
way), it surely need not be informed by a presumed exilic context. What Cross correctly
notes as the agonizing problem of the Exile was not merely the agonizing problem of
the Exile alone. As was discussed at some length in Chapter Two, the matter of how a
203Ibid., 299.
204Indeed, we have already seen in Ch. 2 how the Deuteronomistic Historians changed the phrase 2@>/
0> (1> to its more contemporaneous, better understood semantic equivalent 0> (1> 0(?/ for the
purposes of the audience's comprehension of the concept.
205Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 299.
82
transcendent deity could dwell on Earth among impure humans to be sure, often in a
strictly circumscribed area -- while simultaneously dwelling cosmically in a pure Heaven,
was a matter the ancient world constantly engaged.
206
Ancient Israel was no exception. As
we have seen, ancient Israel (and others) engaged this issue quite adeptly long before the
Exile, and it must be reiterated that they did not appear to have the same discomfort with
perceived inconsistencies between an earthly and a heavenly dwelling that many moderns
do.
207
Benjamin Sommer also takes issue with the scholarly tendency to relegate such
matters to an exilic context, disagreeing with those who seem unwilling to interpret
perceptions of divine immanence as anything other than reactions to a particular
historical event in the sixth century B.C.E.... He continues:
Attempts to portray religious ideas as reactions to historical factors often avoid grappling
with these ideas' deep humanistic significance. From a methodological point of view, this
sort of historicist reductionism represents (and here I introduce a technical term that is not
used frequently enough in discussions of method in religious studies) what we may call a
cop-out.
208

While I am largely in agreement with Sommer's bold statement here, religious
ideas can and do arise in reaction to historical events, and in fact such responses often
will have deep humanistic significance. A religious response that arises in light of a
206As Benjamin Sommer aptly notes, First, while these scholars sense that P's &($. theology navigates a
tension between immanence and transcendence, their insistence on dating this theology to the exile
obscures the timeless nature of the religious dilemma at hand and limits their explanation to a narrowly
historical one. Benjamin D. Sommer, Conflicting Constructions of Divine Presence in the Priestly
Tabernacle, Biblical Interpretation 9, no. 1 (2001) 58.
207While ancient Israelites might not have been uncomfortable with the idea that God could be present
both on Earth and in Heaven, this lack of discomfort does not seem to have extended to a notion that
God could legitimately dwell in more than one earthly location at a time. To be sure, some would have
been untroubled by such a notion (for more on this, see the section entitled The Location of the Glory
in Non-Priestly Texts); but as we have seen in Ch. 2, the Deuteronomistic ideology, for one, insisted on
the singular nature of God's earthly dwelling in no uncertain terms.
208Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, 97.
83
certain historical circumstance does not indicate that such a response is necessarily of less
humanistic significance; humans exist within history, and cannot exist outside of it. Nor,
therefore, does it always constitute historicist reductionism to trace a religious
development to an event in history. However, the force behind Sommer's assertion lies in
the reality that not all new religious understandings can be handily assigned to one event
in history, as if such understandings could in no way form apart from that one event.
Mettinger, while holding to the traditional assertion that P is an exilic work,
concedes the general interchangeability of $>, and 2.> as far as the meaning to dwell
is concerned, and suggests a distinction different from that of Cross. Mettinger
emphasizes that $>, also possesses the well-known meaning, to sit (enthroned), which,
as he also points out, is a meaning lacking for 2.>.
209
Acknowledging that $>, was often
employed in enthronement hymns and, as we have already seen, in the epithet Yahweh
of Hosts who sits/dwells ($>,) upon the cherubim, Mettinger proposes that it was only
this sense of a seated enthronement and not the general idea of a constant immanent
dwelling on Earth -- that the Priestly writers sought to avoid. He argues that this proposed
avoidance was due to an exilic dating and context for the Priestly work, since the idea of
God's enthronement, which was closely associated with Mount Zion, would allegedly be
defunct after the Babylonian destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.
210
In this way,
Mettinger claims that the Priestly writers dethrone Yahweh of Hosts due to a newfound
discomfort with enthronement terminology during the Exile.
209Cross certainly does not deny the sitting (enthroned) meaning for $>,, or its use in enthronement
texts. See Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 246. The difference between Cross and Mettinger
on this meaning for $>,is one of emphasis in their differing theses.
210Mettinger, Dethronement of Sabaoth, 96-97, 115.
84
While I disagree with Mettinger's and Cross's dating of P to exilic times a dating
based significantly, though not entirely, on the mobile nature of the Tabernacle and the
lack of the verb $>,
211
I disagree perhaps more deeply with the concomitant assertion
that P has as one of its goals to rid Yahweh of enthronement imagery and terminology.
This is especially the case when one remembers that 2.> is used in various biblical texts
to describe Yahweh's real presence with no equivocation whatsoever even in tandem
with $>, as we have seen above. Must we accept that the occurrences of 2.> depicting
Yahweh's presence on Mount Zion and amongst the people in general, and in the Temple
or the Tabernacle in particular, consequently deny that Yahweh is sitting enthroned there?
Asked differently, can Yahweh be said to dwell (2.>) in a given place and yet not be
considered enthroned at that place, especially when that place includes the Ark?
212

The notion that Yahweh's enthronement was so intimately connected with the
Temple that the Temple's destruction must have signified his dethronement is faulty.
Psalm 29:10, for example, sings the praises of Yahweh as having sat enthroned ($>,)
above the mighty waters of the Flood (/($1), and states that he sits enthroned ($>,) as
king eternally (0/(5/), in a cosmic sense. Mitchell Dahood, following the work of H.L.
Ginsberg, reaffirms that this Flood connotes not Noah's Flood but the primordial battle
between Baal and Yamm the Sea, representing chaos which leads to the subsequent
enthronement of Baal at the defeat of Yamm. Dahood states, following Ginsberg, that the
psalm is an almost verbatim reproduction of a prior Baal hymn, in which the Israelite
211For a brief overview of Cross's additional reasons for dating P to roughly the exilic period, see Cross,
Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 322-325.
212We have already seen in Ch. 2 how closely the Ark with its attendant cherubim is connected with the
idea of the presence of a deity, in this case Yahweh. We have also seen that arguments attempting to
demythologize the Ark are, ultimately, unconvincing.
85
author simply substituted Yahweh for Baal. Dahood correctly points out that the psalm
seeks to proclaim: By his victory over the primeval forces of chaos, Yahweh is
mythopoeically conceived as acquiring full dominion over earth and sea.
213
Cross adds
that in its Israelite form it is no later than tenth century BC and was probably borrowed
in Solomonic times, and that at the culmination of the epic battle between storm god and
Sea, we are able to see finally the appearance of the god as victor and king enthroned in
his temple (verses 9c.f.).
214

Espousing a different view, Oswald Loretz has argued that this psalm is not, as
has been widely thought, a wholesale borrowing from a Baal hymn but rather a
composite work blending two distinct El and Baal hymns and traditions.
215
Loretz
maintains that what he perceives as distinct El and Baal traditions in the psalm would
never have been confused into one hymn in Ugaritic culture.
216
Therefore, he argues,
Psalm 29 as we have it was composed as a praise to Yahweh long after both the El and
Baal traditions had been subsumed into Israelite culture as part of the everyday
characterization and worship of Yahweh, so that such blending of once-distinct traditions
seemed hardly noticeable anymore.
Ultimately, however, as Yahweh sits enthroned over these waters as eternal
213Mitchell J. Dahood, Psalms 1: 1-50, Anchor Bible 16 (Garden City, N. Y: Doubleday, 1966), 180.
214Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 152.
215Oswald Loretz, Psalm 29: Kanaanische El- und Baaltraditionen in jdischer Sicht, Ugaritisch-
Biblische Literatur 2 (Altenberg: CIS, 1984). Claudio Basevi, parting ways with the Ginsberg-Dahood
approach in a slightly different manner, concludes that the content of Psalm 29 undoubtedly harks back
to Ugaritic traditions, but may in fact be an original Hebrew composition simply in the vein of the older
Canaanite traditions. Basevi sees the composition of the psalm in several stages and time periods from
the monarchic era to the postexilic period, after conducting an analysis from the Masoretic Text, the
LXX, and to a lesser extent the versions. Claudio Basevi, El Salmo 29: algunas observaciones
filolgicas sobre el texto hebreo y griego, Scripta Theologica 22, no. 1 (April 1990): 13-47.
216For an extensive collection of Ugaritic poetry involving both El and Baal, as well as other divinities in
the Cannanite pantheon, see Simon B. Parker, ed., Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, Writings from the Ancient
World 9 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997).
86
king, there is no question of the source of the right to his enthronement it is his mastery
of the cosmos. To this end, J.J.M. Roberts remarks: The Psalms root Yahweh's kingship
in creation, that is, in Yahweh's victory over the powers of chaos and in his establishment
of a stable world order based on that mastery over chaos....Yahweh's imperial rule is
rooted in creation; it is anterior to and, therefore, not dependent on Israel, the Davidic
monarchy, or the fate of Jerusalem.
217
Would the Priestly writers who composed the
cosmic account of Creation in Genesis 1, who detailed Yahweh's instructions at Sinai for
building the the Ark and the Tabernacle (the microcosm of Creation
218
) for his presence
therein, and who assigned all cultic rites to that Tabernacle, thereby deny Yahweh's
enthronement by choosing a verb (2.>) that in common usage denotes to dwell?
We may never gain fully satisfactory answers to these questions. Yet in essence,
the fact remains that neither the mobility of the Tabernacle nor the apparent Priestly
preference for 2.> adequately constitutes a conclusive argument for dating the Priestly
writings during (or after) the Exile.
219
Benjamin Sommer states the matter well when he
217J. J. M. Roberts, The Enthronement of Yhwh and David: the Abiding Theological Significance of the
Kingship Language of the Psalms, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 64, no. 4 (October 2002): 679-680.
218For an excellent articulation and exploration of this concept of the Tabernacle and the Temple as the
microcosm of Creation and of the world, see Levenson, The Temple and the World, 284ff. See also
Moshe Weinfeld, Sabbath, Temple, and the Enthronement of the Lord: The Problem of the 'Sitz im
Leben' of Genesis 1:1-2:3, in Melanges bibliques et orientaux en l'honneur de M. Henri Cazelles
(Kevelaer: Butzon and Bercker, 1981), 501-512.
219David Vanderhooft, while not attempting to settle on a conclusive date for P either before or after the
fall of Jerusalem, offers the convincing argument that P's use of mi"p !& [clan] conforms to the
monarchic reality of the term as a geographically defined entity, whereas undisputedly postexilic texts
clearly do not. Additionally, states Vanderhooft, From a philological perspective, P's use of terms in
the semantic field of kinship, specifically mi"p !& , conforms to that of other monarchic sources.
Furthermore, Vanderhooft argues that this reality should not be dismissed on the basis of a preexisting
assumption that P must therefore be archaizing, but should rather be taken as indicating at least a
possible monarchic provenance. See David S. Vanderhooft, The Israelite mi"p !& , the Priestly
Writings, and Changing Valences in Israel's Kinship Terminology, Exploring the Longue Dure:
Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager, ed. J. David Schloen (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns,
2009) 485-496.
87
asserts:
Indeed, a failure of many studies of divine presence in P lies precisely in the fact that
they begin with an exilic or postexilic dating of P and proceed to find a reading that
allegedly fits the preordained time period. This problem is especially clear in the work
of the many modern scholars....for whom P's notion of divine presence involves God's
'tabernacling'....Consequently, one would do better to analyze the P texts on their own,
without starting from the presumption that they are post D or post 586.
220


The Glory of Yahweh and Cult Centralization in the Priestly Writings.
The matter of the Tabernacle in P raises the companion matter of the view toward
cult centralization in P. In my view, it is difficult to imagine a more emphatic statement
on cult centralization in the Priestly writings than Lev 17:3-9, situated within the
Holiness Code.
221
This passage states that no Israelite under any circumstances may
slaughter or sacrifice anywhere except at the Tabernacle (where God's Glory dwells) so
that the priest may dash the blood against Yahweh's altar at the Tabernacle entrance.
Otherwise, the blood (bloodguilt) will be imputed to that person. Verse 7 proclaims this
an eternal ordinance for all generations 0=;&/ 0'/ =#) ','= 0/(5 =:*.
Yehezkel Kaufmann and Jacob Milgrom, who do not believe that P or H
222
advocated cult
220Sommer, Conflicting Constructions of Divine Presence in the Priestly Tabernacle, 57-58.
221In his commentary on Leviticus, Jacob Milgrom advocates for correspondence between P theology
and H theology on most counts, with certain exceptions, such as what he sees as the tendency in H to
extend holiness to all Israel (though it is an active process of becoming holy) while P seems to be
silent on the potential holiness of non-priests and non-sanctified precincts within Israel. To this end,
Milgrom states, In describing the Priestly theology I shall not distinguish between the two main strands
P and H, except when they clearly differ from each other. Most of the time, they form a single
continuum: H articulates and develops what is incipient and even latent in P. Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16,
42. Baruch Levine, in a view similar to Milgrom's, notes, The central idea of the Holiness Code is that
the people of Israel bears the collective responsibility to seek to achieve holiness....This idea, rarely
encountered in the rest of Leviticus, is here stated repeatedly and emphatically. Baruch A. Levine,
Leviticus: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation, JPS Torah Commentary
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 111. Needless to say, since a stance on distinctions
between P and H must belong in some measure to the realm of subjective judgment, not least because
even the demarcation of the two strands is often nebulous, any conclusions are rooted in somewhat
unsteady soil. It is possible, for example, that P does not intend to deny the becoming holy process to
non-priestly Israel, but simply does not address it in the same explicit way as does H.
222Lev 17 appears to be a blend of P and H. Discussion of the question of whether P and H represent
88
centralization, but allowed for a multiplicity of sanctuaries, attempt to explain this
passage accordingly.
223
Their primary argument is the following.
224

Since the Holiness Code (H) seems to prohibit the non-sacrificial slaughter and
consumption of animals (Lev 17:3-4, with the exception of hunted game and fowl), it
would be unrealistic for the priests to expect that no Israelite consume domestic meat,
since many Israelites would not live close to the Temple.
225
To assist this argument,
Kaufmann and Milgrom point to Deuteronomic legislation, which clearly restricts all
sacrificial slaughter to the one central site but consequently permits any Israelite in any
location to perform non-sacrificial slaughter for the consumption of domestic animals.
Since non-sacrificial slaughter is not allowed for domestic animals in H
legislation and thus not an option, Kaufmann and Milgrom argue that such legislation
must have allowed for multiple sanctuaries, where priests could be staffed to sacrifice
distinct sources within a common priestly school, or whether they in fact ever existed as separate
sources, is not our task here. As Leviticus stands, what scholars refer to as P and H are integrated in
their final form into a single literary setting. Pekka Pitknen observes, Thus, because Lev 17 is a
mixture of P and H features and there is no agreement as to the relative order of P and H, or even
whether they ever existed as separate entities, the problem of the internal prehistory of the Priestly
material is very difficult, including the view of centralization in P and H. Thus, we may conclude that it
is safest if we look at Lev 17 as it is embedded to the Priestly material in its final form in its current
literary arrangement and setting. Pitknen, Central Sanctuary and Centralization of Worship in
Ancient Israel, 80.
223For an intermediate view, see Pekka Pitknen, who contends that P advocated cult centralization in an
ideal sense for an ideal Israel, but did not expect their ideal to represent the reality. Ibid., 92. In
Pitknen's words, Thus, we may say that in many ways the Priestly material argues for a central
sanctuary in the strongest possible way, but more or less tacitly allows other options as well. Pitknen,
94. Pitknen also remarks that while P prefers a central sanctuary but concedes the existence of other
ones, Deuteronomic theology requires centralization in an even stricter indeed the most strict sense,
allowing no distinction between ideal and reality. Pitknen, 105. He advances the idea that for all
Pentateuchal legal texts, all ostensibly uncentralized material has its setting in the time before the
construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness [emphasis his]. Pitknen, 73.
224For the full articulation of all of Kaufmann's and Milgrom's reasons, see Kaufmann, The Religion of
Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, 175-184; Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1504-1514.
225Kaufmann, for example, asserts that if Lev 17 is meant to centralize sacrifice, then the law in effect
bans the eating of meat for the bulk of the people, who were unable to bring their animals to the
Jerusalem temple for sacrificial slaughter. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to
the Babylonian Exile, 180f.
89
domestic animals.
226
However, a ban on non-sacrificial slaughter of domestic animals is
likely not as great a hardship as it may seem at first glance, since game and fowl may be
non-sacrificially slaughtered and consumed anywhere.
227
Seeing this option as
insufficient, Kaufmann and Milgrom assert that Lev 17:3-9 is not a broad-based
ordinance, but rather ought to be taken as a symbolic text referring prototypically to any
sanctuary in Israel staffed by priests, these many sanctuaries symbolized by the one
Tabernacle.
228
The Levitical legislation thus only intends to prohibit sacrifice outside the
confines of a sacred place where a priest officiates -- to prohibit sacrifices in the open
fields.
229

This identification of the Tabernacle as a symbolic prototype is supported, in the
view of Kaufmann and Milgrom, by the fact that the wilderness setting of Leviticus 17 is
programmatic for the promised land, and that Moses, Aaron, and the camp are
226Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, 181-182; Milgrom,
Leviticus 17-22, 1507-1508, 1514.
227This is also the view of Richard Friedman. See Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, 103.
228Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, 181; Milgrom,
Leviticus 17-22, 1505.
229Baruch Levine offers another solution, following Rabbi Akiba, and maintains that Leviticus 17 poses no
disjunct with Deuteronomy. This solution is based on an understanding of the verb +*> here not in its
broader meaning slaughter, but in its restricted meaning sacrifice as a synonym for *$), as is
implied in certain other texts such as Ex 34:35. In Levine's understanding, Leviticus 17 does not, as is
commonly held, prohibit non-sacrificial slaughter of animals, but only prohibits sacrifice that does not
take place at the one legitimate site, in this case the Tabernacle. Both Leviticus 17 and Deuteronomy 12
would thus require the same thing: sacrifice at one appointed altar and nowhere else. Levine, Leviticus,
113. I am unconvinced by this solution, however, in part because if Leviticus 17 carries the same intent
as Deuteronomy 12, why is there no mention of animals to be slaughtered non-sacrificially for food, as
in Deut 12:20-25? Indeed, Lev 17:4 explicitly assigns bloodguilt (0&) to the person who does not bring
the animal to be slaughtered at the altar by the priest. Furthermore, lest we conclude this ascription of
bloodguilt is only due to the animal's sacrifice taking place away from the one legitimate worship site, I
refer to Lev 17:8-9, which states further that if anyone offers a burnt offering or a(nother) sacrifice (
*$) (# '/5) without doing so at the Tent of Meeting, that person shall be cut off (=;.3). I interpret
this as an additional proscription to the preceding injunction against general slaughter that does not take
place at the Tent of Meeting. In my view, the priestly writer recognized the potential for ambiguity and
thus provided separate prohibitions to dispense with any such ambiguity on a matter of evidently grave
importance.
90
archetypes for future prophets, priests, and camps (i.e., cities), respectively, so the Tent of
Meeting is the archetype for future sanctuaries.
230
I would object, however, that even if
archetypes are present here, the Tabernacle/Tent of Meeting as an archetype need only
point to the future central cultic site, i.e. the Temple, and that this is in fact far more
likely than the Tabernacle as an archetype for future numerous cultic sites. If the
Tabernacle is to be taken, as I would maintain, to be an archetype for the future central
Temple and not for numerous cultic sites, then the wording in Lev 17:3-9 can simply be
accepted on its clear face value.
Kaufmann adds that even if Lev 17:3-9 does indicate worship centralized to the
Tabernacle in the wilderness period, that would only have been due to historical
necessity, not an everlasting law, since during the wilderness wanderings the Israelites
were all gathered around their one portable Tabernacle.
231
Kaufmann remarks that P
evidently regards the single desert sanctuary as no more than a phenomenon of the
past...For P, it is the sanctity of a consecrated inclosure that is essential; in the desert
period, there was only one such inclosure, built according to a divine plan and sanctified
by the divine presence. In the future, however, the 'centralized worship' of the desert
period will no longer exist.
232

Kaufmann is correct that the sanctity of a consecrated inclosure is essential for
P.
233
But if the Tabernacle, Moses, Aaron, and other elements represent archetypes for
230Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1505; cf. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the
Babylonian Exile, 183.
231Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, 183.
232Ibid.
233Also Cross, who notes that P chose to place the establishment of the Tabernacle during the divine
appearance at Sinai because the Glory through the cultic paraphernalia of the Tabernacle and its
appurtenances will accompany Israel to the land, and because the Tabernacle and its Ark will provide
for the housing of the covenant document.... Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic:
91
future multiple sanctuaries, can they simultaneously represent a historical centralization
that is opposite to a non-centralization archetype? Perhaps, but in my judgment, such a
position is counterintuitive. In addition, the presence of the phrase =#) ','= 0/(5 =:*
0=;&/ 0'/, This shall be an eternal ordinance for them for all their generations, with
its reference to restriction of sacrifice to the Tabernacle, strongly undermines the idea that
this is an archetype for multiple worship sites.
234
Further, if what separates the Tabernacle in sanctity from any other location is the
fact that the Glory dwells within it, and thus any sacrifices would be offered directly
before (,37/) Yahweh, then it follows that the Glory might also dwell at any and all of
the numerous Israelite sanctuaries where sacrifices would be offered. This would hardly
seem fitting, given the colossal importance of the sanctity invested in the Tabernacle in
Priestly writings. Indeed, even Kaufmann, as seen above, acknowledges the divine plan
for the Tabernacle. The Glory enters the Tabernacle at Sinai after it has been constructed
and sanctified by Moses and Aaron; there is never a hint that the Priestly writers
understood such an event as commonplace to any of a number of sanctuaries Israelites
might build throughout the countryside. Along these lines, Haran remarks upon the
unique nature of the Tabernacle:
However, what really gives P's tabernacle the character of a divine 'dwelling' is neither the
cherubim nor the ark as such, but the combination of this throne and footstool with a table,
Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 313.
234Similarly Pekka Pitknen, who remarks, Without this expression, it would be possible to say that the
laws of Lev 17 were valid only for the wilderness period. However, the expression clearly seems to
carry the meaning over beyond the wilderness period.... Pitknen, Central Sanctuary and
Centralization of Worship in Ancient Israel, 88. See also Friedman, who refers to the command of
Leviticus 17 as unequivocal. Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, 61. William Propp also
understands Leviticus 17 as firmly prescribing cult centralization in P. See William Henry Propp,
Exodus 1-18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 2 (New York:
Doubleday, 1999), 449.
92
a lampstand, and an incense-burner; and furthermore the fact that, when the high priest
paces solemnly towards the deity, he is accompanied by a jingle of bells and is carrying
'seal-engravings' stamped on stones and diadem to evoke divine remembrance and grace.
All these separate symbols are simply different facets of a larger, all-inclusive symbolism,
and, taken all together, it is they that endow the tabernacle with the character of a
habitation.
235

We will remember, too, that the construction of the Tabernacle (and later the
Temple) is intended to be a microcosm of Creation itself, as the Creation is written in
Genesis 1.
236
To these considerations may be added an insightful objection Richard
Friedman makes to Kaufmann. After stating, against Wellhausen, that the Tabernacle
does not correspond well to the Second Temple, Friedman asserts, Still, the Priestly
description corresponds even less satisfactorily to the local places of worship in pre-
Josianic Israel and Judah, for which the discussion of ark, cherubs, Urim and Thummim,
and high priests has no relevance.
237
This is a part of Friedman's larger argument, with
which I concur, that Priestly material in which the Tabernacle is vital and which insist on
the eternal centrality of that structure must be pre-Exilic. The alternative is to claim that
the Priestly writers developed the theme of the Tabernacle as Israel's eternal channel to
God shortly after the destruction of that channel.
238
The question of the Passover (*47) is our final point here. Those who advocate
the view that P and H do not intend cult centralization point to Ex 12:1-14, Lev 23:5-8,
and Num 28:16-25, all texts from the priestly circle. Ex 12:1-14 contains the description
of the Israelites having the first Passover in their homes in Egypt during the tenth plague,
and Lev 23:5-8 and Num 28:16-25 remain silent on the point of where the Passover
235Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 226.
236See, again, Levenson, The Temple and the World, and Weinfeld, Sabbath, Temple, and the
Enthronement of the Lord.
237Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, 48.
238Ibid., 61.
93
sacrifices (or any of the sacrifices for the three national feasts) are to be brought
forward. It is not stated whether they are to be taken to the central sanctuary or simply
any sanctuary. Since the question was apparently a non-issue for the writer(s) of Lev
23:5-8 and Num 28:16-25, who saw no reason to clarify the matter, advocates of both
sides can readily assume their own position for the text. But the argument that the home
Passover of Exodus 12 indicates a pervasive Priestly ideology of non-centralization needs
further investigation.
Haran, espousing the view that P assumes cult centralization, argues that P's
system presupposes that the Passover sacrifice must be made in the court of its only
temple.
239
The Tabernacle qualifies as the only temple for the wilderness period, and
Haran connects this to the fact that P describes the celebration of the Passover in the
wilderness after the completion of the tabernacle (Num. 9:1-5).
240

I agree with Haran on this point, but wish particularly to emphasize
241
the literary
context of the first Passover as recorded in Exodus 12. Taken within its literary context,
the Passover here is a ritual situated on the cusp of the Exodus from Egypt, not only
before the construction of the Tabernacle but before God had yet fully effected the
people's escape. According to Exodus 12, the Israelites celebrate the Passover in their
homes as the Destroyer passes over those homes on its way to slay the Egyptian
firstborn. In this setting, the celebration of Passover in the home is not incidental to the
depiction: it is, in fact, the very point. The first Passover is portrayed as a singular event
at a defining moment in Israelite history. At that moment it could have taken place
239Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 145
240Ibid.
241A point that Haran also acknowledges in Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 378.
94
nowhere else but the homes of the people, due to the extraordinary circumstances leading
to the Passover's very inception at least according to the text. Such a literary setting is
thus not sufficient ground for the extrapolation that P does not advocate cult
centralization in general terms.
William Propp, too, noting that P could not very well ignore the tradition of the
Egyptian Passover as having taken place in the home, goes still further to point out that
unlike the E source, which is also interwoven in the Passover description, for P the
Egyptian Passover slaughter is never explicitly termed a sacrifice. The P text states that
the Israelites shall slaughter ((+*>() the kid in Ex 12:6, and states in v. 11 that it will be
a *47. It is, however, explicitly termed a sacrifice (2$;:) by E in 12:27.
242
Indeed, Propp
observes, since for P a sacrifice is only a sacrifice if a priest is presiding, P cannot
understand the Egyptian Passover as a sacrifice per se, as priests are not only absent but
not even yet in existence. The institution of the priesthood would only be created at Sinai,
according to P.
Therefore, Propp asserts, P (again unlike E) distinguishes between the Pesa of
Egypt and the Pesa of [future] Generations. Propp points to this distinction in the
(Priestly) rule of Passover found in 12:43-49. He contends, rightly in my view, that P
presents an evolution of the Passover from domestic ritual into centralized
sacrifice.
243
It is domestic in Egypt at its inception because of the demands of the
literary-historical setting. But Num 9:1-14, also a Priestly text, explicitly states that
Passovers may not be consumed away from the sanctuary, thus leaving no room for doubt
242Propp, Exodus 1-18, 380.
243Ibid., 449.
95
that future Passovers may not be sacrificed in the home. Even on its own, but certainly
taken in tandem with Lev 17:3-7, Num 9:1-14 acknowledges that the first Passover of
Exodus 12 was a one-time historical event, to be commemorated by future generations in
full compliance with P's view of cult centralization. Significantly, Numbers does term the
post-Tabernacle Passover a sacrifice (2$;:).
244

To conclude, it seems to me far more plausible to accept Lev 17:3-9 for what it
says and understand it to refer to the Tabernacle where God's Glory dwelled and later to
the Temple, to which the Glory transitioned. Understanding the text in this way also
recognizes the singularly weighty importance of the Tabernacle in the Priestly world
view.
Overview of the Location of the Glory in Priestly Texts and its Correspondence to
Ezekiel.
It is salutary at this juncture to observe the differences between the way in which
the Priestly writings imagine the Glory of Yahweh and the space it inhabits and the way
in which non-Priestly writings do so. After we have addressed this matter, we may in the
next chapter turn to the way in which Ezekiel has appropriated and adapted the relevant
Deuteronomic and Priestly traditions in light of his own theological goals, which he
advances through his conception of the Glory of Yahweh.
It is a characteristic of the Priestly writings to employ the term Glory (&($.)
specifically to refer to the presence of God. While it is not entirely clear what the precise
essence of this divine manifestation is, it seems likely that the Glory is not understood as
244Ibid.
96
God's presence in totality, even though the Glory is understood as a form of God himself
that is visible on Earth.
245
That is to say, while the Glory descends to Sinai in a real way
to deliver the Law to Moses, and dwells in a real way within the Tabernacle and later the
Temple, the totality of God is likely not restricted to the location of the Glory. In other
words, the Glory's presence in the Tabernacle or Temple does not consequently negate
God's presence in the heavens.
246
However, in the Priestly worldview, it seems clear that
the Glory itself does not appear in more than one place simultaneously. For example, it
can be either on Mt. Sinai, or in the Tabernacle or the Temple, or (as we will see in
Ezekiel) vacating the Temple in order to appear somewhere else, and later returning to the
Temple; but it does not appear simultaneously in multiple places. Propp remarks: Kabod
is tantamount to 'weight,' 'honor,' 'splendor,' 'wealth,' and 'self.' Yahweh's 'Glory' is the
portion of his essence visible on the terrestrial plane. In P, it appears as a fire ([Ex]
24:17), most often shrouded in cloud. Ezekiel, however, perceives the Glory's...image as
a shining, fiery man (Ezek 1:27-28).
247
Jon Levenson eloquently notes: In cultic
contexts, the term for 'glory' (kabod) has a technical meaning; it is the divine radiance, or
refulgent nimbus, that manifests the presence of God.
248
We will turn in the next chapter
245Just one example of this phenomenon, though it is not a Priestly text, may be Deut 5:21, where the
tribal elders exclaim that God has revealed to them (Hiphil '#;) his Glory ((&($.). They refer to the
fire-cloud enveloping Sinai/Horeb at the giving of the Law; God's voice emerged from the fire-cloud,
which seems to be the referent of the phrase his Glory. In this verse his Glory appears to be both the
fire-cloud itself from which God's voice emerged -- thus something clearly close to the identification of
God himself -- and yet something that God revealed.
246But contrast Benjamin Sommer, who, against the scholarly grain, argues that both Priestly and
Deuteronomic theology could only conceive of God being either in the heavens or the
Tabernacle/Temple, but not both concurrently. Sommer concludes that Priestly theology located God
only in the Tabernacle/Temple, whereas Deuteronomic theology took the opposite route and located
God only in Heaven. As part of his argument, Sommer accepts the traditional view of Name theology,
which I discussed in Ch. 2 of this work. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel.
247Propp, 595.
248Levenson, The Temple and the World, 289. See also Wilhelm Caspari, Die Bedeutungen der
Wortsippe k-b-d im Hebraschen.
97
to Ezekiel's perception of the Glory.
The Priestly texts use &($. almost exclusively to refer to the presence of God,
rather than employing the word in some other sense, e.g., to refer to the honor, wealth or
status of a human or object. There appear to be only two exceptions to this rule, and
though they comprise two verses, they refer to the same thing: Ex 28:2, 40.
249
The Glory
does not appear in the Priestly texts until the wilderness journey to Sinai, and the one
recorded appearance in the wilderness before the Glory initiates its theophany on Mt.
Sinai occurs in Ex 16:10. In this text, the Glory reveals itself in its typical cloud (235) in
reponse to the people's grumblings: "/# (37,( /#;?,",3$ =&5"/."/# 2;'# ;$&. ,',(
235$ '#;3 '(', &($. '3'( ;$&1' (And as Aaron had commanded all the assembly of
Israelites, they faced toward the wilderness, and look! The Glory of Yahweh appeared in
the cloud). Once the Tabernacle is constructed at Sinai, however, the Glory in Priestly
texts is always mediated by the sacred space of that Tabernacle.
250
Yet the Sinai
theophany itself, plus this one recorded appearance in the wilderness approaching Sinai
(Ex 16:10), are the notable exceptions: there the Glory appears outside any sacred
enclosure because no sacred enclosure was yet in existence. To this effect, Milgrom
comments that when he [God] transferred to the Tabernacle his earthly presence in the
form of the fire (k bd ! )-encased cloud, God thereby designated the Tabernacle as the site
for all subsequent 'meetings' between God and Moses....
251

249These verses refer to the apparel of splendor and glory of the garments to be worn by the priests.
250When the Glory appeared to the people as a whole at the entrance of the Tabernacle at its
commissioning in Lev 9:23, it first required the mediation of Moses and Aaron to bless the people.
Further, 9:6-22 is devoted to the description of the extensive sacrifices and rituals the people were
required to perform before the Glory would appear to consume the offerings, at the Tabernacle entrance.
In addition, it is significant that the Glory still remained within the Tabernacle's large enclosure during
this event.
251Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 142.
98
Claus Westermann argued that the Glory's appearances while the Israelites wander
in the wilderness always follow a pattern in the Priestly text: the Israelites' grumbling,
localization at the Tent of Meeting, appearance of the Glory, God's answer to
Moses/Aaron, and God's action.
252
According to Westermann, the Tent of
Meeting/Tabernacle (as earlier noted, the same structure in P) is a constant. However,
Westermann does not appear to consider that in Ex 16:10 the Glory is not localized at the
Tabernacle, since the Tabernacle has not been constructed, nor even instructions given for
its creation.
253

The fact that the Priestly worldview allows the Glory to appear without a physical
sanctuary only when such a sanctuary is not available is significant for how Ezekiel
portrays the Glory. The context of the Glory's appearance in the Sinai wilderness in P
illuminates the Glory's appearance in Ezekiel's context. To wit, in the Sinai there is as yet
no Tabernacle or Temple; for P, the primary reason for the Glory's appearance at Mt.
Sinai is to give instructions for the sacred enclosure and its attendants. In addition, in the
literary progression of P, when the Glory appears unmediated in this Priestly narrative, it
does so outside the land of Israel. Thus, the Glory appears at Sinai during the period of
wandering by the Israelites, as they journey from a situation of dislocation as a slave
people in Egypt toward the land to which Yahweh leads them.
Ezekiel's context is similar in several important ways. He is part of a larger group
252Claus Westermann, Die Herrlichkeit Gottes in der Priesterschrift, 240-245.
253This discrepancy in Westermann's schema, along with the observation that the Tabernacle had not yet
been built in Ex 16:10, is also noted in passing in Michael Widmer, Moses, God, and the Dynamics of
Intercessory Prayer, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 286,
fn 20. Widmer states that the Glory's lack of mediation in Ex 16:10 is to be expected, given that the
Tabernacle is not yet in existence.
99
of forced exiles, not strictly a slave people but a people taken against their will, with the
hope of return to the land they believe Yahweh gave them. In this situation, the Glory of
Yahweh appears outside the land in a context of dislocation for the exiles, during a time
when Yahweh's sacred enclosure becomes defunct, meets with its destruction and ceases
to exist. Ezekiel, outside the land of Israel, confronted the non-existence of Temple and
Tabernacle. Here the Glory appears to Ezekiel with no physical sanctuary, and sets the
context for God to designate himself in Ezek 11:16 a +51 >&:1 (sanctuary in some
measure, or sanctuary for a little while
254
) for the dislocated people.
Nor can it be a substantial objection that Ezekiel's utopian vision of ch. 40-48,
which imagines the strictly demarcated sacred space of the restored Temple, vitiates the
idea of God-as-sanctuary through the Glory's presence outside sacred space. As I have
stated, the Glory's appearance to Ezekiel outside Israel, and outside sanctified space,
recalls its initial appearance without sanctified space in the Sinai before the Tabernacle
was available. In Ezekiel's utopian vision, the sacred precincts of the Temple have been
restored and the people have returned to the ideal land; thus, the need and the conditions
for God to dwell outside sacred precincts have ceased to exist.
The Location of the Glory in Non-Priestly Texts.
Bearing all these things in mind, we may now turn to the use of &($. in non-
Priestly texts, which reveals a quite different scenario. The Priestly strand of the
Pentateuch, as noted above, uses &($. exclusively to refer to God's presence, with the
exception of two verses referring to the same description (Ex 28:2, 40, the splendor of
254See a detailed analysis of the meaning of this phrase in both linguistic and theological terms in Ch. 4.
100
priests' garments). This leaves 13 instances constituting God's presence.
255
Non-Priestly
writings use &($. with comparative infrequence to refer to God's presence.
256
Outside
Priestly texts proper but including Ezekiel, &($. appears 183 times; 55 of these, by my
judgment, indicate God's Glory-as-presence. Note that four of these occurrences appear
in 2 Chronicles, where the Chronicler is reprising the description in 1 Kings of the
Glory's entrance into Solomon's Temple (2 Chr 5:14, 7:1-3). The book of Ezekiel alone
contains 18
257
a striking one third of these 55 occurrences of the Glory as God's
presence, with only one Ezekielian occurrence of &($. that does not indicate God's
presence (Ezek 31:18). When &($. does signify God's presence in non-Priestly texts,
such occurrences are concentrated in Psalms and Isaiah.
258

Further, outside of P, the Glory as the presence of God is in the majority of cases
described as filling the Earth, residing over the Earth and encompassing the heavens, or
as something that the nations or the peoples will come to see at last. This illustrates
an interesting contrast to P, which never explicitly portrays the Glory in direct relation to
other nations or as filling the Earth. It is therefore fascinating to see that Ezekiel does
explicitly speak of the Glory in such a way in Ezek 39:21, wherein Yahweh remarks upon
his eschatological defeat of the armies of Gog: I will bestow (,==3) my Glory among
the nations; then all the nations will see my justice which I have performed, and my hand
255Ex 16:7, 10; Ex 24:16, 17; Ex 29:43; Ex 40:34, 35; Lev 9:6, 23; Num 14:10; Num 16:19, 42; Num 20:6.
256It should, of course, be noted here that the judgment as to whether &($. in a given text signifies God's
Glory-as-presence, or one of the other semantic possibilities of &($., will be to some extent subjective.
257Ezek 1:28; 3:12, 23 (twice in v. 23); 8:4; 9:3; 10:4 (twice), 18, 19; 11:22, 23; 39:21; 43:2 (twice), 4, 5;
44:4.
258Exceptions to the general concentration within Psalms and Isaiah are Ex 33:18, 22 (E), Deut 5:21, cited
above, Num 21-22 (J), 1 Sam 4:21-22, Jer 14:21, and Hab 2:14 . Here we bracket the eighteen
occurrences within Ezekiel, who, as noted above, employs the Glory as God's presence exclusively save
for one occurrence. I do not consider Ezekiel, of course, to reside outside priestly circles.
101
(,&,) which I have set (,=1?) upon them.
259
While it would likely be too much to say
that here Ezekiel strictly diverges from his Priestly tradition, it is worth noticing that in
the prophet's historical and geographical context unique in the history of Judah
Ezekiel shows God as revealing God's Glory in direct relationship to the broader world
outside Israel. While Ezekiel might not thereby contradict Priestly tradition as such, it is
certainly plausible that he stretches its horizons to encompass the reality he experiences.
As I have just stated, the concept of God's Glory revealed among the nations is
not found in P, though it is common in non-Priestly texts. With respect to Ezek 39:21,
Walther Zimmerli observes that its content God revealing his Glory among the nations
is unusual in Ezekiel, and the phrase place (2=3) my hand upon them appears
nowhere else in the book.
260
As I have already noted in Chapter One, I do not consider a
one-time appearance of a phrase in an author's work to be sufficient grounds for deeming
that phrase secondary. Therefore, I see both the atypical content and the atypical phrase
as elements intended to seize the reader with their unexpectedness.
Excluding Ezekiel, among all the occurrences of the Glory as God's presence
outside Priestly texts, the Glory is explicitly linked with the Temple a mere three times.
261

That is not to say, of course, that non-Priestly biblical texts typically did not regard the
Glory as connected to the Temple. However, it is to say that the Glory's perceived
259With reference to this, Daniel Block nicely comments, As the glorious Shekinah had symbolized the
presence of Yahweh among his people in the past, so the new vision of his glory would declare his
presence among the nations. Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 25-48, 480-481. Similarly Katheryn
Darr, who remarks, The glory of the Lord, first revealed to Ezekiel in a vision as he stood beside the
Chebar Canal, will be displayed for all eyes to see in light of God's great victory. Darr, The Book of
Ezekiel, 1529.
260Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 25-48, trans.
James Martin, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), 319.
261These cases are Ps 26:8, 29:9, and Jer 14:21.
102
location(s) and circumstances display a broader range than in the Priestly writings, and
while the Glory is still associated with the Temple in non-Priestly theologies, the
preferred emphasis seems to lie in descriptions of the Glory filling the Earth and the
heavens and revealing itself to the nations. It is worth taking notice of this motif
occurring in Ezekiel as well, as the prophet expands his theological framework in a
vigorous response to unprecedented events. In the following chapter, I shall explore
Ezekiel's responsive theological framework further.
103
Chapter Four
The Role of the Glory of Yahweh in Ezekiel
In this chapter, we will explore the purpose of Ezekiel's particular portrayal of the
Glory of Yahweh. As part of this process, we will consider matters such as God's
declaration in Ezek 11:16 that he has become a sanctuary in some measure to the
exiles; Ezekiel's description of the Glory itself and any significance pertaining to that
description; Ezekiel's divergences from Deuteronomistic theologies; and the overarching
purpose that the prophet expresses through the vehicle of the Glory. I maintain that
Ezekiel depicts the Glory in a way that differs significantly from how divine presence is
understood in Deuteronomistic Name theology; further, in doing so, Ezekiel draws upon
his Priestly tradition to reveal the Glory as a catalyst for a link to the past, which will
place Israel on the path to its re-creation.
This link to the past, which Ezekiel presents through the vehicle of the Glory, is to
the Sinai wilderness during the Exodus, before the Israelites had constructed the
Tabernacle for God's presence. In the Priestly tradition, this period was the only period
during which Yahweh's Glory appeared among the people without any sacred space to
mediate it, until the Tabernacle's construction at Sinai.
262
During this period, the Israelites'
262 Ezekiel does not directly speak of the Glory's presence in the Exodus wilderness in so many words.
But rejection or ignorance of this Priestly tradition of the Glory cannot be inferred from this lack of
explicit reference. First, there is Ezekiel's documented familiarity with, and strong affinity for, broader
Priestly tradition (to be noted in the section Ezekiel at Odds with Deuteronomistic Theologies in this
chapter). The only place in Ezekiel's book in which he addresses the Exodus period in any kind of
sustained way is Ezekiel 20 (discussed in greater detail in Ezekiel at Odds). Ezekiel 20 makes no
104
circumstances were homologous to the new circumstances in which Ezekiel and the
exiles found themselves: dislocated, outside the land, and without the designated
structure to enclose and mediate the Glory. It is under these circumstances that the Glory
appears to Ezekiel in his inaugural vision in Babylonia, unmediated by any physical
space; and it is under these circumstances that Yahweh announces to the prophet that he
himself has become a sanctuary in some measure for the people in Babylonia (Ezek
11:16).
The +51 >&:1: Yahweh as a Sanctuary in Some Measure in Babylonia.
In Ezekiel 11:16, the prophet states that Yahweh has become a +51 >&:1, often
translated small sanctuary, to the Judeans living in exile in Babylonia. I translate the
verse as follows: 0,=(9,7' ,.( 0,(%$ 0,=:*;' ,. '(', ,3&# ;1# '. ;1# 2./
0> (#$ ;># =(9;#$ +51 >&:1/ 0'/ ,'#( =(9;#$, Therefore say, thus says Lord
Yahweh, Though I have sent them far away among the nations, and though I have
specific mention of the Glory either before or after the Tabernacle would have been constructed in the
story's progression. However, the Glory's presence is not the purpose of Ezekiel's selective and
revisionist history for that chapter. It is widely acknowledged that Ezekiel's purpose for ch. 20 is
polemical, intended to portray Israel's history as one of unbroken rebellion against Yahweh even in that
early period. Mention of the Glory or the Tabernacle has no direct bearing on Ezekiel's sketch of history
in ch. 20, which is so oriented toward its own purpose that the chapter contradicts Ezekiel's rejection of
transgenerational retribution (Ezekiel 18) without causing concern for the prophet. The selective nature
of the historiography in Ezekiel 20 is also clear in the absence of the patriarchs except by indirect,
passing reference to Jacob as the namesake for the nation. Ezekiel blithely ignores the patriarchs
because their faithfulness to Yahweh does not fit with the purpose of the chapter's sculpted history
indeed, Ezekiel portrays the ancestors as thorough apostates no better than his contemporaries, and
possibly worse. Yet this does not mean he is ignorant of the patriarchal traditions, or even that he
believes in his stated apostasy of all the ancestors. It means only that Ezekiel 20 is designed to serve a
singular purpose the indictment of Israel from its inception and in this purpose it is self-contained.
Indeed, it has been said that Ezekiel is no systematic theologian (for this coinage, see below in
Ezekiel at Odds). It is my belief that Ezekiel is aware of the Priestly tradition of the Glory's Exodus
activity, just as he is aware of other Priestly traditions, and that it does not play a particular role in the
specialized historiography of Ezekiel 20.
105
scattered them among the lands, yet I have become for them a sanctuary in some measure
in the lands into which they have come. The expression +51 >&:1 may mean small
sanctuary (in terms of degree, as in sanctuary in some measure) or sanctuary for a
little while. Before defending my interpretation, it is helpful to examine the context in
which the phrase occurs. Ezekiel 8-11 constitutes an extended vision in which the prophet
is transported by the spirit/wind (*(;) of Yahweh to witness the iniquities taking place at
the Jerusalem Temple. These iniquities culminate in Ezekiel 10 with the departure of the
Glory from the Temple, paving the way for its destruction.
Ezek 11:15 reports that the remaining inhabitants of Jerusalem those who were
not taken in the first exile of 597 have come to assume that their apparently safe status
signifies their favor in Yahweh's eyes. Since, in their view, Yahweh allowed them to
remain in the land, the land must indeed be their inheritance; Yahweh has clearly
abandoned the exiles, who are now far from his presence. In 11:15 the inhabitants of
Jerusalem say of the exiles, They are far ((:*;)
263
from Yahweh; the land has been
given to us as an inheritance ('>;(1/). As Daniel Block observes, Underlying this
comment is the notion that access to Yahweh is contingent on physical presence in
Yahweh's land. This notion has a long history in Israel. As early as the period of the
conquest, popular opinion had it that the favor of Yahweh was somehow connected with
the terra sancta, defined as the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean
263Here I read (:*; as a Qal perfect, rather than the Masoretic pointing for an imperative. Still, even if we
read the imperative (remove yourselves far from Yahweh), the meaning would not be changed. The
inhabitants of the land are emphasizing their own supposed proximity to Yahweh and the land in
contrast to the exiles. For a further analysis of :*; in the legal sense, as relinquishing claim to, see
below.
106
Sea.
264
However, Ezek 11:16 reports God's rebuff to this view: Therefore say, Thus says
Lord Yahweh, 'Though I have sent them far away among the nations, and though I have
scattered them among the lands, yet I have become for them a sanctuary in some measure
in the lands into which they have come.' Verse 17 continues with God's promise to
gather these scattered people and bring them back to the land of Israel in repatriation,
completing his refutation of the assumptions espoused by those currently remaining in the
land.
We may turn now to a discussion of the possible meanings of +51 >&:1. A look
at the use of
265
>&:1 in the Hebrew Bible indicates that it denotes a sacred place or
sanctuary, as well as its immediately surrounding precincts, and can also refer to the
sacred objects associated with the sacred place. With respect to such objects, Menahem
Haran notes of >&:1: In the priestly terminology it indicates any article or object
possessing sanctity....At the same time, the word miqd " ! comes to be also used as a
designation of the entire temple compound for instance, the entire area of the tabernacle
described in P (Exod 25:8; Lev. 12:4; 21:12 et al.), the entire district of the temple as
described in Ezekiel's code (Ezek 43:21; 44:1, 5, 7-8 et al.) -- as well as a term for all
temples...
266
The occurrences of >&:1 in the Bible do not support any translation that
renders it an abstract noun, such as sanctity.
267
It denotes, rather, a sanctuary itself or its
hallowed vicinity and appurtenances.
264Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1-24, 347.
265This word occurs 73 times. Avraham Even-Shoshan, '>&* ',93&;(:3(: (Jerusalem: Kiryat-Sefer,
1996), 703-704.
266Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 15.
267Against the NJPSV translation of the passage.
107
The word +51 has to do with smallness or fewness (specifically in terms of
quantity), and can also refer to durations of time or to matters of degree. Waltke and
O'Connor define its use in Ezek 11:16 as that of a disjunct emphatic adverb, rare in
Hebrew, and translate the phrase, to some extent.
268
This is the sense in which
Greenberg, for example, understands the word when he translates the phrase as (but a)
small sanctuary.
269
As noted above, +51 may also be taken in the temporal sense: for a
little while.
270
LXX, appearing to avoid a temporal translation, renders hagiasma
mikron, small sanctuary. A temporal meaning cannot, however, be entirely ruled out.
Still, an evaluation of +51 in the Hebrew Bible indicates that a temporal meaning
is less likely in the case of Ezek 11:16. A look at the occurrences of +51
271
reveals that
the word denotes smallness of quantity 61 times. Outside of those occurrences, seven
times it is used specifically to mean a small matter, as in is it too small a matter...?
+51 is also used to clarify degree or extent in twenty definitive cases (if we include, for
the sake of argument, Ezekiel 11:16). Finally, it refers to time, as in a little while, in ten
definitive cases. It is important to note that in all ten unambiguous cases where +51
refers to time,
272
it is governed by a preposition: either &5, still, yet, until, or ., as,
according as. There are only two remaining occurrences, in which the meaning of +51
268Waltke and O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 663.
269Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 185-186, 190; also Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1-24, 230; Block, The Book of Ezekiel,
Chapters 1-24, 349-350 ; Paul Joyce, Dislocation and Adaptation in the Exilic Age and After, in After
the Exile: Essays in Honor of Rex Mason, ed. John Barton and David J. Reimer (Macon: Mercer
University Press, 1996), 45-58.
270See, e.g., William Hugh Brownlee, Ezekiel 1-19, Word Biblical Commentary 28 (Waco, Texas: Word
Books, 1986), 155, 164; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel, Interpretation (Louisville: J. Knox Press, 1990),
63-64. Since Ezekiel nowhere implies how long the exile will be though he does believe that it will, at
some future point, end Paul Joyce suggests that the grounds for taking a temporal translation may be
less steady than those for degree. Joyce, Dislocation and Adaptation, 55.
271Even-Shoshan, '>&* ',93&;(:3(: (Jerusalem: Kiryat-Sefer, 1996), 687.
272Ex 17:4, Job 32:22, Ps 37:10, Ps 81:15, Is 10:25, Is 26:20, Is 29:17, Jer 51:33, Hos 1:4, Hag 2:6.
108
is somewhat ambiguous: Job 24:24 and Ruth 2:7. In Job 24:24, it follows the verb (1(;,
they are exalted, and is usually taken to mean they are exalted for a little while.
273

This is certainly possible, but it is worth noting that in this case it may logically also refer
to degree, so that the verse could read, They are exalted only a little, as opposed to,
They are exalted for a little while. Either interpretation would fit the context. It may
also be significant that of the other places where +51 occurs in Job, one is a definitive
reference to time and is in fact accompanied by the preceding . (Job 32:22). In other
words, it is not entirely certain that we are to understand a temporal reference in Job
24:24.
Ruth 2:7, which describes Ruth having gleaned all day in the fields and then
having rested, is the only other case where +51 could refer to time while not following
the prepositions &5 or .; but this is by no means certain since the verse is difficult to
translate. While the first half of the verse presents no problems, the second half has
occasioned not only versional differences in the Greek, Latin, and Syriac (all of which
appear to be attempts to deal with the difficult Hebrew phrasing), but also confusion
among modern translations. The problematic second half of the verse appears as follows:
+51 =,$' '=$> ') '=5 &5( ;:$' )#1 &(15=( #($=(. Most interpreters understand
the end of the verse to refer to the small (+51) amount of rest that Ruth has had at
home.
274
In this interpretation, the exact nuance remains open: +51 could indicate either
273As is the sense taken, for example, by the NJPSV and the NRSV.
274E.g., Jack M. Sasson, Ruth: A New Translation with a Philological Commentary and a Formalist-
Folklorist Interpretation, 2nd ed. (Sheffield: JSOT, 1989), 48; Paul Joon, Ruth: Commentaire
Philologique et Exgtique, 2nd ed., Subsidia Biblica 9 (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico,
1986), 51; Derek R.G. Beattie, Midrashic Gloss in Ruth 2.7, Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche
Wissenschaft 89, no. 1 (1977): 122-124; for a thorough listing, see overview in Daniel Lys, Rsidence
ou repos? Notule sur Ruth ii 7, Vetus Testamentum 21, no. 4 (1971): 497-501.
109
the quantity of rest or the time spent at home resting, as there is not much distinction
between the two.
However, it is equally possible that +51 does not refer to rest at all, but rather to
the quantity of food that Ruth gleaned in the fields. J. de Waard, in his comments on Ruth
in the BHQ edition, notes that while the precise meaning of M [the Masoretic Text] will
probably never be known, we might do well to follow Bertrand Zimolong's
275

understanding of =,$' '=$>, her resting (in) the house, as standing as an appositive
to the preceding '), this (time), which in turn is taken in tandem with the preceding &5
'=5, until now. The half-verse would then read, She has come and stayed from the
start of the morning, and until now, this (the time of) her resting in the house, it is little
(she has gathered). De Waard goes on to observe that +51 would then refer to the little
quantity Ruth has gleaned in the fields.
276
If this interpretation is correct, +51 would not
refer to time or rest in this instance at all. As yet another alternative, Daniel Lys has
proposed re-punctuating the sentence in a different way, so that starting from ') it would
read, This [field] is her residence; the house is [means] but little.
277
In this
interpretation, +51 would still signify little, but modify the house and its role rather
than the quantity of food gleaned.
In sum, we have seen that in all ten of the occurrences of +51 that
unambiguously refer to time, the word is always governed by an immediately preceding
275Bertrand Zimolong, Zu Ruth 2.7, Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 58 (1940): 156-
158.
276J. de Waard, Ruth: Commentary on the Critical Apparatus, in Biblia Hebraica Quinta: General
Introduction and Megilloth (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004), 53.
277French: Ceci est sa rsidence; la maison l'est peu. See Daniel Lys, Rsidence ou repos? Notule sur
Ruth ii 7, Vetus Testamentum 21:4 (1971) 501. Also Michael Moore, Two Textual Anomalies in
Ruth, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 59, no. 2 (Ap 1997): 234-243.
110
&5 or .. While there are two ambiguous cases that could potentially refer to time, one of
them (Job 24:24) could just as easily be translated in the sense of degree, and the other
(Ruth 2:7) is extremely problematic to begin with, and may refer to quantity or size. Even
if a reader prefers to understand both of these cases as referring to time, it cannot be
denied that when +51 is employed as a time reference, it is normally governed by a
leading &5 or .. Significantly, there is no such preposition in Ezek 11:16.
If we thus take the sense as one of degree, as the evidence suggests, we are faced
with either a positive or a negative interpretation. That is, one could, with Greenberg,
take God's pronouncement as, Though I have removed them into the midst of the nations
and scattered them through the lands, and am but a small sanctuary for them in the lands
into which they have come Assuredly, say: Thus said Lord YHWH: I will gather you
out of the lands into which you have been scattered, and I will give you the soil of
Israel.
278
This would be an example of a negative interpretation of the phrase's meaning,
i.e. God is only a small sanctuary in a deprecatory sense, hardly any sanctuary at all.
Zimmerli, too, offers a negative interpretation: I have been a sanctuary to them (only) a
little in the countries to which they have come.
279
Zimmerli's translation is, however,
based on his interpretation of the preceding ,. as an emphatic certainly rather than a
concessive although, so that Yahweh affirms what Jerusalem's inhabitants have said.
However, as we will see below, the structure of the sentence as a whole indicates that the
,. clause is concessive, which leads into a subsequent antithetical conclusion: yet I have
become.
278Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 185-86.
279Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1-24, 230.
111
As stated above, I argue for the following translation: Though I have sent them
far away among the nations, and though I have scattered them among the lands, yet I
have become for them a sanctuary in some measure in the lands into which they have
come. With this translation, the waw is rendered contrastively and the declaration takes
on a positive meaning. The word in question is ,'#( (which I translate yet I have
become), a wayyqtl form, or what Gesenius terms the imperfect with waw
consecutive.
280
Paul Joon notes that this form was employed mainly to signal
succession, often for a single and instantaneous action.
281
Waltke and O'Connor further
observe, Relative waw with a prefix form represents a situation that is usually successive
and always subordinate to a preceding statement....Sometimes with wayyqtl a situation is
represented as a logical entailment from (a) preceding one(s) or a logical contrast with
it/them or as a summarizing of it/them.
282
In their presentation of the uses of wayyqtl,
Waltke and O'Connor remark that in the case of logical consequence, The two situations
may be logically contrasted (w has the sense 'and yet'). One example given is Gen 32:31:
,>73 /93=( 0,37 /# 0,37 0,'/# ,=,#; ,. which is translated, I have seen God face to
face and yet my soul is delivered.
283
In this case, the wayyqtl, /93=(, directly follows a
suffix conjugation, ,=,#;, though this sequence is not strictly necessary in order still to
preserve the contrastive sense because the wayyqtl may also follow a prefix conjugation.
Even so, in Ezek 11:16 we have the very sequence with two verbs in a suffix conjugation,
:*; and 8(7, followed by the wayyqtl ,'#(.
280Wilhelm Gesenius, Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974), 327.
281Paul Joon, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, trans. T. Muraoka, Subsidia Biblica 14/1-14/2 (Rome:
Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblio, 1991), 390. For the entire treatment of the wayyqtl, see ibid., 389-95.
282Waltke and O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 547.
283Ibid., 550.
112
Significantly for our purposes, Gesenius also comments on this imperfect
consecutive after a preceding perfect, emphasizing the contrastive or even antithetical
meaning: The imperfect consecutive sometimes has such a merely external connexion
with an immediately preceding perfect, that in reality it represents an antithesis to it, e.g.
Gn 32:31 and (yet) my life is preserved; 2 Sam 3:8 and yet thou chargest me; Jb 10:8,
32:3.
284
Thus it is entirely acceptable and even preferable to translate yet I have
become, even more so in light of the likely concessive sense of the preceding ,.:
Though I have sent them far away among the nations, and though I have scattered them
among the lands...
285
Joyce, who similarly translates the waw yet and understands the
meaning as sanctuary (albeit in small measure), observes: We have then a positive, if
qualified, statement of divine blessing in exile, and not merely an essentially negative
preamble to the promise of physical restoration from exile.
286
This promise of physical restoration of the exiles to Israel, which comes in v. 17,
is sometimes taken as the reason to translate the sanctuary in exile negatively, since it is
indisputable that Ezekiel as a priest looks for the future restoration of the Temple, where
God's Glory may again come to rest in its preferred place, the Holy of Holies (as in the
vision of Ezekiel 40-48). Yet the reality of Ezekiel's role of priest, and of his anticipation
of a future Temple housing the Glory, should not lead one to the conclusion that in
Ezekiel's view God cannot be a real and positive presence to the exiles in Babylonia, even
284Gesenius, Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, 327.
285For the concessive sense in general and in this concessive clause in particular, see Joon, A Grammar
of Biblical Hebrew, 640-641.
286Joyce, Dislocation and Adaptation, 56. Katheryn Darr, as well, conceives of the reader's hearing
God affirm the Lord's presence with the exiles scattered abroad. Katheryn P. Darr, The Book of
Ezekiel, 1188.
113
to the point of serving as a type of sanctuary himself. The beginning of Ezekiel's book, in
which he vividly describes the presence of the Glory in Babylonia later confirming in
Ezekiel 10 that the Glory has indeed left the Jerusalem Temple affirms that the prophet
believes the Glory has moved to the midst of the exiled community.
287
Even Zimmerli, who, as we have seen, does not interpret the small sanctuary as
positively as does the present work, recognizes some degree of positive meaning in terms
of God's presence in exile:
Where the exiles sat down at the site of their limited worship by the rivers of Babylon --
there the prophet saw the manifestation of the divine glory. Where the elders sought
instruction in the house of the prophet -- there the prophet was gripped by the hand of
Yahweh....All of these events did not replace the reality of the sanctuary. Nevertheless it
was certainly not a place abandoned by God. It was a form of the divine presence in the
place of exile.
288

Zimmerli also sees the declaration of God's becoming a small sanctuary as a
deliberate variation of one half of the traditional Priestly covenant formulation, which
appears in its normal form in v. 20 as 0,'/#/ 0'/ ','# (I will be for them a God).
Zimmerli notes that this self-giving of God to the people had expression in the Priestly
writings in the concrete realization [that] God established a sanctuary in Israel and dwelt
287Also Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth, 152. On this point, Block points out that the ambiguity of
how the exiles will experience this sanctuary of divine presence exists in tandem with the unambiguous
assertion of that presence: Ezekiel offers no clues how the exiles might have experienced Yahweh's
presence among them, but his own encounters, beginning with his inaugural vision, offered concrete
proof of the truthfulness of Yahweh's declaration. Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1-24, 350.
Kutsko offers the insightful thesis that Ezekiel engages in paradox to reveal the presence of the Glory
with the exiles, over against the absence of the false gods (0,/(/%, dung heaps) belonging to the
Babylonians. Kutsko argues that Ezekiel seeks to counter the ostensible reality that Yahweh is absent
from the exiles, while the Babylonians' gods are visibly present in a literal way through their statues. By
refusing ever to refer to these statues of gods as gods (0,'/#), but only as dung heaps (0,/(/%),
Ezekiel asserts that these statues are mere lifeless idols, symbolizing not the presence of their
corresponding gods but the absence. By contrast, Yahweh might be invisible to the exiles, but
paradoxically this invisibility signals his true presence. He is present with them not through visible
idols, but through his majestic Glory and his becoming a sanctuary. This is a primary thesis in
Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth: Divine Presence and Absence in the Book of Ezekiel.
288Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1-24, 262.
114
there by his presence in the midst of his people....So we are led to think directly of a
priestly variation of the covenant declaration which was formulated >&:1/ 0'/ ','#.
In the >&:1 the divine presence was established in the covenant people.
289
If Zimmerli's
insight is correct, then Ezekiel takes the well-known covenant formula I will be for them
a God, and alters it to I have been/become for them a sanctuary. This is, of course, not
to override the prior covenant formula (it indeed appears in traditional form in v. 20), but
to cast it in a new and radical light. In other words, God's sanctuary used to be a physical
place in a certain land, but has at least temporarily become a form of God himself in a
different land.
Frank Cross suggests that the presence of +51 to qualify sanctuary in 11:16
may actually be a gloss, added in the interest of the primacy of the Jerusalem temple.
290

While an intriguing possibility, and one that would definitively resolve the question of
what Ezekiel may originally have meant by the term, there is yet no manuscript
evidence to bolster this idea. In the absence of such evidence, we are forced to interpret
the text as it stands.
In my view, the absence of the Temple for the exiles in Ezekiel's day
291
is the
reason that the metaphorical sanctuary that God provides is qualified in some measure,
because by nature it does not possess the cultic accoutrements that complete the worship
of Yahweh and no cultic rites minister to it. It is, for this reason, short of the ideal because
289Ibid.
290Frank Moore Cross, A Papyrus Recording a Divine Legal Decision and the Root r q in Biblical and
Near Eastern Legal Usage, in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed.
Michael V. Fox et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 320, fn 38.
291On the question of whether there were smaller Yahwistic sanctuaries in Babylonia in Ezekiel's time, a
question outside the focus of this study, see Oded, Yet I Have Been to Them +51 >&:1/ in the
Countries Where They Have Gone (Ezekiel 11:16). Oded concludes that there were no such structures.
115
the ideal involves a full, functioning, ritually pure temple.
292
However, I emphasize that
Ezekiel's description of God as a sanctuary in a foreign and (to the Israelites) ritually
unclean land, must not be underestimated in its purpose and impact all the more
because he is a priest. Indeed, as Block remarks, Now this prophet, whose clan's
interests are vested in defending the centrality of the temple, announces the possibility of
a relationship with Yahweh apart from the temple!
293
It is through such considerations
that we must see the designation of God's becoming a small sanctuary as a positive rather
than negative assertion. Menahem Haran speaks of the Israelite idea of the sanctity of
Canaan:
In one of P's narratives, the land east of the Jordan is described as 'unclean,' and its
inhabitants must refute the claim that they 'have no share in the Lord,' while the land to
the west of the Jordan is 'the Lord's possession' and the tabernacle stands there (Josh.
22:19, 25, 27). From David's claim we learn that one driven out of the land of 'the Lord's
heritage' is as if doomed to worship other gods (1 Sam. 26:19).
294

Haran expounds further on this idea:
From the words of Hosea we learn that outside 'Yahweh's land' it is impossible to offer
him sacrifices and libations and, consequently, food is considered impure there...The
assumption that it is impossible to worship Yahweh outside his land is also expressed in
Deut. 4:28; Jer. 16:13. The psalmists go even further with their claim that it is impossible
to 'sing a song of the Lord on alien soil' (Ps. 137:4).
295
In light of these widespread Israelite ideas (also discussed in the final section of
Chapter Two), Ezekiel's statement that God has become a sanctuary, even if only in
some measure, both without a physical structure and outside Yahweh's chosen land, is a
break with a very traditional and accepted theology. Even though this traditional theology
existed alongside the companion notion that Yahweh holds the whole world as his
292Similarly Block, who remarks, Perhaps it was this [priestly] attachment to the tradition that led
Yahweh to qualify the promise: in small measure. Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 350.
293Ibid.
294Haran, Temples and Temple-Service, 39.
295Ibid., 41.
116
dominion, the fact remained that only Israel was Yahweh's dwelling place on Earth.
While Ezekiel would not deny Israel's favored position to Yahweh, his insistence in such
vivid language that Yahweh's Glory has left Israel due to the people's own impurities, and
has appeared in an unclean foreign land, is radical. This becomes especially clear when
considered in light of Deuteronomistic Name theology.
Ezekiel's revelation of the Glory in Babylonia wields a striking impact because
the Glory reveals itself without benefit of a physically sanctified space to mediate
between itself and its surroundings. This fact attracts still more attention when one
remembers that in the Priestly worldview, the only time the Glory appears outside
sanctified space is within the precincts of Sinai, when there was no available sanctified
space. The context of those appearances is similar to Ezekiel's context: the absence of
Temple/Tabernacle, with the people in a dislocated condition outside the land. I suggest
that one of Ezekiel's primary goals was precisely to reveal and connect this
correspondence of conditions to his audience of exiles and their current circumstances.
The prophet thereby intends to show that the people Israel are starting over at Yahweh's
action, since the magnitude of their iniquity and dislocation requires not merely a
corrected path but a new beginning entirely. We will explore these motifs more
thoroughly in the subsequent section.
Here, it may be reiterated that while Ezekiel expects a future in which an ideal
Temple will thrive in an ideal city, he communicates that until that much-anticipated day,
Yahweh acts to meet the current reality of his people, even if it is one that Yahweh
himself has brought about. In the service of this revelation that answers his contemporary
117
reality, Ezekiel paints quite a different picture than the Deuteronomistic one of the
Jerusalem Temple as the one enduring locus for divine-human interaction, where
Yahweh will choose to place his Name. It is not that Ezekiel sets aside the concept of a
temple; indeed, in his final chapters he elucidates the plan for the perfect temple. But he
communicates that God's Glory is revealing itself, and even doing so in Babylonia,
without the physical structure that served as its earthly abode just as it did in the Sinai
wilderness before that structure existed.
We return now to some final points to conclude our discussion of Ezek 11:16.
Paul Joyce rightly observes that Ezekiel established through his vision of the moving
divine throne a vital surrogate for the Jerusalem Temple....In conclusion, then, we may
see this declaration [of sanctuary in some measure] as a daring attempt to deal with
exiled Israel's physical, psychological and above all theological dislocation.
296
Speaking
in a more general sense not specific to Ezekiel, Peter Ackroyd similarly remarks in his
book Exile and Restoration, [I]t is God himself who not only provides the context for
the reordering of Israel's life but also the whole process by which that life may be
continually renewed and reformed.
297
With his revelation of God's Glory and God-as-
sanctuary outside the land, it appears that Ezekiel argues for a new perception of this
reordering and the process it entails. As Ackroyd states of Ezekiel as a whole,
The reality of being in exile, in the unclean land (cf. ch. 4), produced a shattering
reaction in Ezekiel....Though the belief that Yahweh controls the destinies of all peoples
carries with it the knowledge that he must therefore be accessible everywhere, the actual
experience is a test of faith...the experience of it is such as to demand a rethinking which
only the event can provoke.
298
296Joyce, Dislocation and Adaptation, 57-58.
297Peter R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration: A Study of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century B.C.
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968) 99.
298Ibid., 108.
118

In the context of 11:16, God is delivering a refutation to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, who presumptuously declare that the exiles are far ((:*;) from God and the
land inheritance is their own. Frank Cross has illuminated the legal ramifications of the
root :*; in light of other West Semitic usage as carrying the sense to relinquish claims
or to forfeit rights.
299
We can easily perceive this potential meaning in the statement of
the inhabitants of the land to the exiles: They are far from Yahweh; the land has been
given to us as an inheritance. Even if one prefers the Masoretic imperative pointing
(Remove yourselves far from Yahweh) the sense is not altered, and the possible double
entendre of the exiles' having (supposedly) relinquished claims to Yahweh in tandem
with their (supposed) physical distance from him is striking.
The rationale behind the Jerusalemites' contention is that removal from the land of
Yahweh's dwelling which was also the location of Yahweh's Temple until its
destruction means that the exiles must concomitantly relinquish any claim they might
have had to Yahweh as their God. In this rationale, even though the Temple ceased to
exist for the Jerusalemites, the exiles in Babylonia were without access even to the land
itself, and therefore without a real claim to Yahweh as their God. They were not in
Yahweh's land with Yahweh's people, but the land of another god and another people.
Indeed, Yahweh's land, and none other, was the land that contained his chosen place.
From the Jerusalemites' perspective, the exiles had been expelled from Yahweh's elected
territory. In that perspective, only those who remained in that territory possessed valid
claim to Yahweh; Babylonia was certainly not any place that Yahweh had chosen or
299Cross, A Papyrus Recording a Divine Legal Decision, 311-320.
119
would frequent.
This is the context behind the shocking statement in Ezek 11:16. The exiles need
not relinquish their claim to Yahweh as their God because they have not, in fact, incurred
any distance from him at all, nor even from his true sanctuary. The exiles, according to
Ezekiel, are the ones with the ongoing claim to Yahweh, since Yahweh has left his
polluted Temple and appeared in a different land making it, in effect, his own as much
as Israel.
300
The exiles are not far removed from the true sanctuary, since God has
declared that he himself has become the sanctuary. The sanctuary, then, is in the midst
of the exilic community, despite its distance from the former chosen place and the
traditional area of Yahweh's territory. The divine presence is not far from the exiles;
indeed, according to Ezekiel, it could not possibly be any closer. With Yahweh's
statement that he has become a sanctuary among the exiles, Yahweh clearly denies the
assertion that they are far from him physically or that their claims to him have been
relinquished.
301
With respect to this controversial designation of God as a sanctuary in exile,
Daniel Block observes that such a statement was without parallel in the Hebrew Bible:
The sanctuary was normally conceived of as a cult site or building rendered sacred by
the presence of the deity. Here Yahweh promises to be for the exiles what the temple
has heretofore been for them in Jerusalem....Both the content of this statement and the
channel through which it reaches Israel are remarkable. Ezekiel himself was heir to the
tradition in which the notion of the sanctuary, sacred space/place, was at the heart of
Israel's spiritual self-consciousness. The temple served as a visible sign of Yahweh's
300By portraying Yahweh's presence in a foreign land without even a modicum of lip service to its deities,
Ezekiel leaves no doubt that Yahweh lays claim to that foreign land unmolested by any other gods, just
as he is sovereign over the land of Israel. For a sustained and detailed thesis that Ezekiel is the first
unambiguously monotheistic voice in the Bible, see Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth.
301Kutsko also believes Ezek 11:16 asserts that God has made himself into a sanctuary among the exiles.
However, in contradistinction to my proposal, Kutsko sees this divine sanctuary as a parallel to the
mobile Tabernacle from the wilderness wanderings (Ibid., 152), whereas I see it as a link to the Glory
itself as it appeared in the wilderness before the Tabernacle's existence.
120
presence among them and as a symbol of their status as the people of Yahweh.
302
Block goes on to note that in his opinion, the closest analogy to Ezekiel's
statement in 11:16 appears in the New Testament when Jesus appropriates the word
temple (Gk naos) to himself in John 2:19-22, and when he says to the Samaritan woman
that true worship will occur neither in Jerusalem nor on Mt. Gerizim but only in spirit
and in truth in John 3:21-23.
303
Perhaps an even closer analogy can be found in
Revelation 21:23, which describes the eschatological heavenly city of God: And I saw
no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the
city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory (doxa) of God is its light,
and the lamp is the Lamb (RSV). While analysis of the New Testament is well beyond
the purview of this study, the concept of a city with God as its temple and God's Glory as
its light may find its inspiration though certainly not its blueprint in Ezekiel.
The Enthroned God: Ezekiel Sees No Concessions.
Tryggve Mettinger posits that Ezekiel represents a kind of intermediate step
between the triumphal Zion-Sabaoth theology of divine immanence that thrived before
the Exile, and the allegedly abstract theology of dethronement (which did not consider
Yahweh to occupy a throne on Earth) that allegedly developed by the end of the
Exile.
304
We have already discussed in Chapters Two and Three Mettinger's theory that
Deuteronomic Name theology and the Priestly theology of the Glory in the
302Block, Ezekiel 1-24, 349-50.
303Ibid., 349, fn 30.
304Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth, 106, 115.
121
Tabernacle
305
constitute a kind of watering-down of the idea of Yahweh's presence in the
aftermath of the Temple's destruction. These theologies, in Mettinger's theory, indicate a
Deuteronomic and Priestly belief that Yahweh can no longer be thought of as
enthroned, since the Temple as the seat of his enthronement was found to be violable.
306

For Mettinger, the Priestly use of the Glory of Yahweh rather than Yahweh Sabaoth
represents a conscious choice informed by the Temple's destruction,
307
in order to
disengage from the idea of Yahweh's enthronement (on Earth in general and in the
Temple in particular).
Mettinger acknowledges that Ezekiel most certainly portrays Yahweh as
enthroned upon his divine cherubim chariot both before, during, and after the Temple's
destruction,
308
and that the throne conception was still extremely important to
Ezekiel.
309
However, Mettinger hypothesizes that Ezekiel's designation of the rider of the
throne as the Glory of Yahweh, rather than as Yahweh Sabaoth, indicates the beginning of
a theology that Yahweh's enthronement and his concomitant designation as Yahweh
Sabaoth had become unusable in the aftermath of the Temple's destruction.
310
In this
sense, Ezekiel and his use of the Glory of Yahweh represents for Mettinger the beginning
of the Priestly method of the distancing and eventual dethroning of Yahweh's presence
305As stated in Ch. 3 and below in Ch. 4, Mettinger believes the Priestly writers designated the Tabernacle
to house the Ark only as a container and not as a throne. This position on the Priestly conception of the
Ark seems strange in light of the clear statement Yahweh gives to Moses in Ex 25:22 regarding the way
he relates to the two cherubim atop the Ark: I will meet with you there, and I will speak with you from
above the cover, from between the two cherubim that are atop the Ark of the Covenant....
306These positions are, of course, intertwined with Mettinger's dating of both the Deuteronomic Name
theology and the Priestly writings to the Exile. We have already discussed certain problems that I
perceive with such dating in Ch. 2 and 3.
307Similarly Katheryn Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1120.
308Ezekiel 1, 8-11, and 43, respectively.
309Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth, 106.
310Ibid., 115.
122
as a result of the Temple's destruction.
One problem with the theory that Ezekiel, through his use of the designation &($.
(Glory), attempts to distance Yahweh's presence or to indicate that he should no longer be
thought of as the immanent Yahweh Sabaoth, is that Ezekiel goes to extreme lengths to
describe the appearance of the Glory on its cherubim throne, even as he struggles with the
inadequacy of language to describe it. The appearance of the Glory turns out to be quite
anthropomorphic (Ezek 1:26-28)
311
and not ostensibly any less immanent than other
biblical presentations of Yahweh. Ezekiel, while indicating through repeated use of the
words =(1& (likeness) and '#;1 (appearance) his struggle and inability to communicate
the fullness of what he saw,
312
states that the Glory of Yahweh had something like the
appearance of a human (0&#) comprised of what resembles fire and amber, with a
surrounding radiance like the appearance of the bow in a cloud on a day of rain (Ezek
1:28).
313
The Glory also has the appearance of loins ((,3=1, Ezek 1:27), and is an entity
that has made itself visible and audible to a human being.
311For an excellent exposition of the way Ezekiel seeks to connect the anthropomorphic likeness (=(1&) of
Yahweh's Glory with humankind and the Creation in Genesis 1, and thus to indict anyone who does
violence to a human as doing violence to the image of God, see Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth.
312As Greenberg remarks concerning these buffer terms: this does not signify a reservation with respect
to looks but with respect to substance....there is no ground for supposing he had any reservations
respecting the visual likeness in these comparisons. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 53. Greenberg goes on to
draw a comparison with the use of such buffer terminology in Judges 13:6, wherein Manoah's wife tries
to describe what she saw. Similarly, Daniel Block refers to the overwhelming visual impact of the
theophany revealed in the prophet's frustrating search for adequate forms of expression...[T]he glory of
Yahweh defies human description, verbally or visually. Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1-24,
106. Katheryn Darr adds the interesting further insight that the use of such qualifiers throughout the
chapter serves not only to specify but also to conceal the details of what are supranormal entities. Darr,
The Book of Ezekiel, 1115.
313As Darr notes, Ezekiel's reference to the rainbow likely serves not only to describe the radiance of the
Glory, but also to make reference to the rainbow as Yahweh's sign of his covenant with Noah never
again to destroy the Earth's life by flood. Darr remarks, Perhaps in this context, the appearance of the
multicolored radiance surrounding the enthroned figure reassures readers that Yahweh's promise to
sustain creation still stands, despite the threat of chaotic times. Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1117.
123
Another problem with the theory that Ezekiel stands in a transitional stage at the
beginning of a trend to deny Yahweh's enthronement and real earthly presence -- deeming
these defunct after the Temple's destruction -- is that it relies on a view of Yahweh's
enthronement that is too narrow. I raised this objection in Chapter Three, pointing out that
Psalm 29:10, for example, extols Yahweh as sitting enthroned over the Flood (/($1).
Whether this is a reference to the primordial cosmic waters of chaos, or to Noah's flood,
is secondary to the fact that Yahweh's enthronement in the setting the psalm describes
certainly predates the Temple. Yahweh's enthronement is cosmic in nature, and while he
may indeed sit enthroned in a temple, this does not affect his heavenly and eternal
enthronement as God, which is always the cosmic backdrop behind his connection to the
Temple (see Is 6:3 and 1 Kings 8, for example). Yet neither does this cosmic backdrop
negate his ability or his choice to enthrone himself in a tabernacle or temple
simultaneously, at his own will. To that end, J.J.M. Roberts' summary of Creation as the
true foundation of Yahweh's enthronement is worth citing at length:
The Psalms root Yahweh's kingship in creation, that is, in Yahweh's victory over the
powers of chaos and in his establishment of a stable world order based on that mastery
over chaos. Despite the role that David's historical conquests may have played in the
elevation of Yahweh to imperial rank, with very few exceptions it is not those historical
victories but the primeval mythological victories that provide the primary religious
language for praising Yahweh as king (Pss 93:1-3; 95:4-5; 96:5,10) ... This emphasis on
creation as the original context for Yahweh's imperial rule means that Israel's own
experience of God's historical acts of salvationwhether it is the election of Israel as
his special possession or the choice of the Davidic house as his human vice-regents and
of Jerusalem as God's earthly dwelling placeis to some extent relativized. Yahweh's
imperial rule is rooted in creation; it is anterior to and, therefore, not dependent on
Israel, the Davidic monarchy, or the fate of Jerusalem.
314

We also have no indication that belief in Yahweh's enthronement somehow
314Roberts, The Enthronement of Yhwh and David: the Abiding Theological Significance of the
Kingship Language of the Psalms, 679-680.
124
necessitated the use of the term Yahweh Sabaoth, as Mettinger seems to imply, and that
if one chose another designation, one then sought to raise questions about Yahweh's
enthronement. Such a hypothesis does not allow for much breadth of expression.
Moreover, Block points out that the closest biblical analogies to Ezekiel's theophany of
the Glory on its throne lie in Psalmic imagery where Yahweh $(;. /5 $.;, (rides
[enthroned] upon the cherub), which we see for example in Ps 18:8-16 (= 2 Sam 22:8-
16); and where Yahweh is 0,$(;. $>, (the one who sits [enthroned] upon the cherubim)
in, e.g., Ps 80:2 and 99:1.
315

Significantly, while these texts without doubt describe Yahweh as riding and
sitting enthroned upon the cherubim, none of these texts choose the appellation Yahweh
Sabaoth, which sometimes elsewhere accompanies the description of Yahweh upon the
cherubim.
316
Yet it cannot be said that these Psalms deny that he is Yahweh Sabaoth, or
that they express some implicit discomfort with this appellation. Since such imagery is
the closest comparison to Ezekiel's theophany, and since descriptions of the enthroned
Yahweh evidently need not employ the term Yahweh Sabaoth, we may harbor doubts
about drawing major conclusions from the fact that Ezekiel does not include the term
Yahweh Sabaoth. We shall return to these doubts further below in this section.
Here we may ask that if the intention of Ezekiel, and for that matter the Priestly
writings, were to employ the term Glory as a purposeful abandonment of the term
Yahweh Sabaoth because of concerns over enthronement terminology, why would the
cherubim and throne imagery have been left intact? Ezekiel uses heavy cherubim-throne
315Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1-24, 106.
316See, e.g., 1 Sam 4:4.
125
imagery where the Glory is concerned, and the Priestly writings (contrary to Mettinger's
hypothesis) do not shy away from describing the cherubim's function above the Ark, or
from blatantly stating that Yahweh resides above and speaks from above those cherubim.
This is clear in Exodus 25:22, the culmination of the Priestly description of the Ark and
its cherubim. Here Yahweh speaks of his relationship to the two cherubim atop the Ark:
I will meet with you there, and I will speak with you from above the cover, from
between the two cherubim that are upon the Ark of the Covenant. Such a text, in my
view, speaks for itself.
Furthermore, we have no reason to think that describing God's effulgent presence
as his Glory requires a more abstract or less immanent conception of his presence.
317
To
consider this, one may again refer to the Exodus passage cited above. One is further
reminded, however, of Ex 33:18-23, though this is generally considered not a Priestly text
but one belonging to the JE narrative. In this famous episode, Moses asks to see Yahweh's
Glory, due to the intimate relationship that has been forged between them. Yahweh
responds that he will cover Moses in the cleft of a rock with his hand (6.) while his
Glory passes by. Then Moses will be able to view his back (;*#) but not his face, since
no one can see the face of God and yet live (v. 20). This text, much like Ex 25:22, also
gives us no reason to believe that there is a significant disjunction between Yahweh and
317Baruch Levine remarks to this effect that in the Priestly worldview, the divine presence was
manifested in the Tabernacle, located at the center of the Israelite encampment. The preposition betk
'in the midst of' emerges as a revealing figure of speech, used frequently in statements affirming God's
presence, together with the verb " kan ! 'to dwell, reside.' Levine cites an example in the directions for
the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus 25:8, where God states, Let them make for me a
sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst. Levine cites as further examples Ex 29:45-46, Lev 15:31,
16:16, Num 5:3, 35:34, Josh 22:31, and 1 Kgs 6:13. In Levine's view, the notion of divine immanence
is expressed most eloquently in Ezek 37:28, wherein Ezekiel quotes Yahweh as stating that the nations
shall know that he is the one who sanctifies Israel by the presence of his sanctuary in their midst forever
(also Ezek 43:9). Levine, Numbers 1-20, 429.
126
his Glory -- nor is the Glory depicted in a particularly abstract manner, since the text
employs such words as hand (6.), back (;*#), and face (,37). Even should one
argue that such terms are metaphorical, this does not change their anthropomorphic
connotations, which the writer chose to employ.
Dale Launderville describes Ezekiel's vision of the enthroned Glory thus:
Yhwh is clearly pictured as a powerful king who is fully in charge of his realm....It
seems that Ezekiel takes the step of describing the enthroned Yhwh in order to make
clear to the exiles that Yhwh has not abdicated his throne. Because the Jerusalem
temple was still standing in 593 B.C.E., the vision of Ezekiel 1 makes clear that Yhwh
is not confined to the inner chamber of the temple but can move wherever he chooses.
Ezekiel risks a near anthropomorphic portrayal of Yhwh....in order to emphasize
Yhwh's unshakeable power and presence.
318
In the process of making it clear to the exiles that Yhwh has not abdicated his
throne, and in illustrating with the mobile throne that Yhwh is not confined to the inner
chamber of the temple but can move wherever he chooses (even while the Temple still
stood!) Ezekiel does not see the wheeled mobility of Yahweh's throne to be any
concession in the wake of the Temple's vulnerability. To be clear, I do not suggest that
Ezekiel's emphasis on the Glory's mobility is not a recognition of the Temple's
vulnerability; it is certainly informed by the prophet's conviction that the Temple has
ceased to be a suitable dwelling for the Glory, and that without the Glory, the Temple will
not stand. Ezekiel's portrayal of the Glory's mobility is, indeed, the keystone of the
prophet's response to the unwelcome reality in which he and his compatriots find
themselves. However, I agree with Launderville that Ezekiel does not intend this mobility
318Dale Launderville, Spirit and Reason: The Embodied Character of Ezekiel's Symbolic Thinking (Waco,
Tex: Baylor University Press, 2007), 59. Also see Dale Launderville, Ezekiel's Throne-Chariot Vision:
Spiritualizing the Model of Divine Royal Rule, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 66, no. 3 (July 2004): 361-
377.
127
to concede any idea that Yahweh has been dethroned in the wake of his Temple's
vulnerability. Rather, the mobility confirms Yahweh's dominion, not only over his own
throne, but over the entire Earth as evidenced by how easily Yahweh may sweep in and
out of lands that other deities are said to claim as their own. By virtue of this broad
mobility, Yahweh is not the victim of his Temple's fate, but rather the author of it: by
voluntarily withdrawing from his Temple, according to Ezekiel, Yahweh condemns it.
319

It is worth mentioning here the following suggestion by John Strong, who takes a
view opposite to that of many scholars on this question. Strong proposes that if the
appellation Yahweh Sabaoth is purposefully absent from Ezekiel, then such an absence
need not indicate a silent renunciation of enthronement and Zion-Sabaoth theology, but
could in fact indicate a well-situated facet of this very theology. If such is the case, Strong
argues, then Ezekiel does not attempt to overthrow Zion-Sabaoth theology along with its
enthronement aspects, but remains supportive of such theology, utilizing the traditional
motif of the Glory in a way that Strong argues had in fact long been recognized by Zion-
Sabaoth theology.
320

319Similarly, the Poem of Erra, a Babylonian text that describes the destruction of Babylon by the god
Erra, states that Marduk vacates both his statue and his temple first. This allows Erra to destroy them
as well as the city and its residents. There is no implication that Marduk has abdicated his throne or his
sovereignty by this action; indeed, it is only his abandonment of his temple in the first place that allows
it to be destroyed. In order to convince Marduk to withdraw from the precincts and thus allow their
despoiling, Erra argues that the people have neglected the worship of Marduk, and allowed his statue to
fall into disrepair. For an extensive look at the Poem of Erra and its possible parallels with Ezekiel, see
Daniel Bodi, The Book of Ezekiel and the Poem of Erra (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991).
For the motif of divine withdrawal in Erra and in other Sumero-Akkadian literature, see pp. 191-212.
Bodi also remarks that at the end of Erra, Marduk returns to his restored temple as Yahweh returns to
his restored Temple in Ezekiel 40-48. Bodi, Ezekiel and the Poem of Erra, 309. Although the Erra text,
for my purposes, is interesting as another example of a deity withdrawing from his earthly abode
without relinquishing any sovereignty, my thesis does not depend on Ezekiel's exposure to this text.
However, for his purposes, Bodi establishes that the Erra text was well-known in Babylonia by the time
Ezekiel would have lived there, and had likely been composed at least a hundred years earlier.
320John T. Strong, God's kabd: The Presence of Yahweh in the Book of Ezekiel, in The Book of
Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000),
128
As part of this argument, Strong analyzes several passages outside Ezekiel
mainly in Psalms and Isaiah which remain supportive of Zion-Sabaoth theology while
simultaneously speaking of Yahweh's Glory as an entity that fills the Earth, a
manifestation of Yahweh that the nations will see in time.
321
Strong proposes that this
semi-autonomous manifestation of Yahweh was fully accepted as a facet of Zion-Sabaoth
theology in the following way. Strong remarks, If the k bd ! was a hypostasis of God,
whose location and duties were specifically defined by Zion theology, then Yahweh was
never 'dethroned.' He could remain permanently crowned as king, while at the same time
preserving his connection with the unclean regions of the cosmos.
322
Strong goes on to
elaborate that in his view, Zion theology employed the appellation Yahweh Sabaoth to
refer to the fullness of the heavenly God in his universal kingship, represented -- but not
fully encompassed -- by his throne in the Jerusalem Temple. However, alongside this in
Strong's theory, Zion theology considered God's Glory as the manifestation of God that
appeared on the unclean Earth fighting the forces of chaos.
Strong describes his view of Ezekiel's portrayal of the Glory within Zion-Sabaoth
theology thus:
It is my contention that the k bd ! was understood by Ezekiel to be the hypostasis of the
enthroned divine king, Yahweh. The domain of Yahweh's hypostasis was the unclean
regions of the earth....The duty of this hypostasis was to fight the enthroned king's
battles against Chaos. From the prophet's perspective, Chaos had once again taken over
the world, as in the days of Noah. Beginning with the defiled temple, the k bd ! would
fight Chaos, pushing it back to reveal fertile land and reclaiming the temple as the
portal to Yahweh's throne room. For Ezekiel, then, Yahweh never abandoned his
throne....Yahweh's k bd ! continued to fill the earth, and through it, God's presence
69-95.
321In Ch. 3, I discussed this quality of the Glory as evidenced in Psalms and Isaiah, noting that in some
(though certainly not all) cases, it is a matter of judgment whether the text refers to the Glory as a
manifestation of Yahweh or simply glory as one of Yahweh's resplendent attributes. Strong discusses
some of this ambiguity in his article.
322Ibid., 72.
129
remained.
323
In Strong's theory, Ezekiel refrains from the terms Yahweh Sabaoth and Zion
not because the prophet rejects these terms outright as symbols of an empty theology, but
because in the situation of the Temple's defilement and the people's exile, the Temple
Mount could no longer function as the portal to Yahweh's throne room -- and thus could
not be called Zion. In this way, Jerusalem ceased to function as Zion during this period,
in a manner fully comporting with Zion-Sabaoth theology itself.
324
Ezekiel, contends
Strong, saw the Glory simply as it was always manifested outside the temple mount,
especially in the unclean regions outside of the land of Israel.
325
Thus Ezekiel would
operate fully within the assumptions of Zion-Sabaoth theology.
Strong's theory is laudable in that it goes against the scholarly grain, rightly in my
view, with its platform that Ezekiel never sought to advocate, imply, or initiate any
supposed trend toward Yahweh's dethronement by his portrayal of the Glory. With this,
I fully agree. I do, however, perceive certain problems with the details of Strong's
hypothesis. According to this theory, Yahweh Sabaoth who Strong says represents God
in his most heavenly, most other form was present only at his throne within the
Jerusalem Temple, which served as the earthly portal upward to his heavenly throne.
According to Strong, Yahweh Sabaoth never ventured outside the sanctified precincts of
the Temple and of the heavens; instead, the Glory was designated to roam the Earth,
especially the unclean regions, preserving Yahweh's order there and battling the forces of
323Ibid., 73.
324Ibid., 89.
325Ibid., 82.
130
Chaos where they may reappear. It is Strong's contention that Ezekiel adheres to this
model, and therefore the Glory's appearance to Ezekiel in Babylonia was fully in keeping
with it since, Strong argues, the Glory had been sent by the enthroned Yahweh Sabaoth
to reclaim the world from the resurgent forces of Chaos that had resulted in the Exile.
However, a major problem with this, in my view, is that Ezekiel quite clearly
envisions the Glory as having been present in the Temple before removing itself (Ezekiel
8-11), and as the entity that will return to the future idyllic Temple to resume its place
inside (Ezekiel 43-48). This major aspect of Ezekiel's theology remains unexplained by
Strong's theory, which strictly puts Yahweh Sabaoth in the Temple and the Glory outside
the Temple. Even if one were to say that the Glory (rather than Yahweh Sabaoth) was
present at the first Temple because it had already been ceded to Chaos and desecration,
one certainly cannot claim this for the future restored Temple of Ezekiel's vision. Further,
the conclusion of Ezekiel's book reveals that this future idyllic city is named only
Yahweh is there ( '1> '(',), thereby equating the presence of the Glory in the
restored Temple and Yahweh. This equation cannot be ignored, and, furthermore, could
also serve as an answer to those who have claimed that Ezekiel's use of the Glory
somehow undermines the enthronement or the real presence of Yahweh himself.
Another problem is Strong's contention that Ezekiel does think of God as still
fully enthroned, but enthroned as Yahweh Sabaoth, who, because of the Temple's
defilement, has removed himself from the earthly plane and is now enthroned only in the
heavens while the Glory remains on Earth to fight Chaos. Hence Yahweh is enthroned,
but the Glory is not enthroned. However, Ezekiel clearly does perceive the Glory as an
131
enthroned entity, since he describes the Glory as sitting on a throne borne by cherubim
indeed, as having moved from the cherubim in the Temple onto the mobile divine
cherubim. And this is to say nothing of the Priestly Pentateuchal writings, which I have
argued above most certainly conceive of the Glory as enthroned within the Tabernacle.
Lastly, why would the Glory possess a specialized function to fight Chaos in the
world, when the Psalms frequently praise Yahweh Sabaoth as fighting Chaos? It is
possible one could draw a distinction between Yahweh Sabaoth fighting Chaos in the
heavens and the Glory fighting Chaos on Earth, but such a distinction seems artificial.
This is all the more so since neither the Psalms nor any other biblical text is terribly clear
that there is any kind of real distinction between Yahweh as Sabaoth and Yahweh as
Glory. As unsatisfying as it may sound, the matter could in the end come down merely to
different streams of tradition preferring one terminology over another.
I do not presume here to solve the perennial question of why Ezekiel and the
Priestly source appear to prefer the term Glory to Yahweh Sabaoth. However, as
should be clear by this juncture, I do not believe the answer lies in the assertion that
either Ezekiel or the P source (or both) is struggling with the issue of Yahweh's
enthronement and/or real presence, and seeking to make an end run around either one. I
also am not convinced that this particular difference in terminology for Yahweh indicates
a substantial theological disagreement,
326
but may simply come down to different not
326The difference between the use of Sabaoth and the use of Glory is not a substantive one for the
nature of the divine presence or its enthronement in my view. Because I see no strong evidence here of a
disparity in how the divine presence is characterized, I see any difference as mainly terminological. My
argument with respect to Deuteronomistic Name theology and Ezekiel's Glory theology, however, arises
from what I perceive as a substantive conceptual difference in the characterization of the earthly divine
presence. That substantive difference does not, in my view, end with terminology.
132
necessarily mutually exclusive ways of expressing the identity of God. This possibility
is only strengthened by the interchangeability of the terms Yahweh and his Glory in
Ezekiel's conception of the future city it is named Yahweh is there, with the Glory in
the Temple.
Mettinger's theory, as we have seen, proposes that Ezekiel's employment of the
term Glory over Yahweh Sabaoth, and Ezekiel's description of a throne that rides
upon the wind with wheels, indicates Ezekiel's emerging belief that Yahweh should no
longer be thought of as Sabaoth, and that the conception of the enthroned Yahweh needed
a serious overhaul.
327
But as we have noted and as is widely known, Ezekiel's vision of
Yahweh riding the cherubim, riding upon the wind and the clouds, certainly does not
represent the first time Yahweh had been so portrayed. The Psalms which as Block
noted contain the imagery closest to Ezekiel's theophany had long praised Yahweh as
the one who rides the cherubim as well as the clouds, and had long given voice to the
tradition that Creation must be the true foundation for Yahweh's enthronement. This is a
foundation anterior to Yahweh's presence, or lack thereof, in the Temple.
This is to say that envisioning Yahweh as a cosmic entity upon a moving
cherubim throne riding the wind (as Ezekiel does) expresses deep roots in Israelite
tradition, and need not have been the reaction of a man trying to overhaul Yahweh's
identity or the way in which Yahweh sat upon his throne at the time of the Temple's
imminent downfall. On the contrary, this depiction of Yahweh is in keeping with a much-
honored ancient tradition to which the Psalms give voice most eloquently, and which
327Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth, 106, 115.
133
Ezekiel here revisits with powerful effect. As I have stated already, and will explore
further in the next section, Ezekiel's experience of the Glory in Babylonia outside
sanctified walls was also in keeping with his own Priestly tradition on the Glory's
presence without a Tabernacle in the Sinai wilderness.
Ezekiel did not seek to make any concessions about an allegedly unusable
appellation for Yahweh. Rather, Ezekiel sought to express his divergence from the
Deuteronomistic theology of the Jerusalem Temple as the one locus for divine-human
interaction, the only earthly place where Yahweh would be truly present.
Ezekiel at Odds with Deuteronomistic Theologies.
It is certainly nothing new to recognize that Ezekiel shows familiarity with other
biblical traditions, among them to a very clear extent traditions that appear in the
Priestly texts of the Pentateuch, especially the Holiness Code (H), with Leviticus 26 of
particular note.
328
Ezekiel's probable awareness of Jeremiah and Hosea has also been
pointed out
329
(where Hosea is concerned, particular attention goes to Ezek 16 and 23), as
well as some parallels with the Elijah-Elisha cycles in Kings.
330
Ellen Davis, in her
328For an influential survey of similarities that Ezekiel shares with Pentateuchal legal traditions, see
Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1-24, 46-52. See also Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth, 10-14. For an overview in
particular of Ezekiel's similarities with Priestly writings and especially the Holiness Code, see Keith W.
Carley, Ezekiel Among the Prophets: A Study of Ezekiel's Place in Prophetic Tradition (London: SCM
Press, 1975), 62-65; Risa Levitt Kohn, A Prophet like Moses? Rethinking Ezekiel's Relationship to the
Torah, Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 114, no. 2 (2002): 236-254; Corrine L. Patton,
"I Myself Gave Them Laws That Were Not Good": Ezekiel 20 and the Exodus Traditions, Journal for
the Study of the Old Testament, no. 69 (March 1996): 81-82; Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 124-128; Block,
The Book of Ezekiel, 423-424; Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1152-1153; Preston Sprinkle, Law and
Life: Leviticus 18.5 in the Literary Framework of Ezekiel, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
31, no. 3 (March 2007): 275-293.
329See the overview in Carley, Ezekiel Among the Prophets, 48-57. For a further discussion of general
tradition history in the latter prophets, some of which may be reflected in Ezekiel, see Zimmerli,
Ezekiel, 41-46.
330Carley, Ezekiel Among the Prophets, 28-33.
134
excellent study of Ezekiel as the first primarily writing prophet, who consciously
employs narrative, written techniques as features of his prophecy, remarks that Ezekiel
demonstrated 'intellectualist training' which is not only exacting but broad: he draws upon
historical and prophetic traditions as readily as legal ones, and the ease with which he
manipulates mythic elements and calls forth vivid images bespeaks intimacy with the
literary heritage of Israel and its neighbors.
331
We shall return to this reality further
below in our discussion of Ezekiel's probable response to Deuteronomic traditions.
Such familiarity with Israelite written tradition should, of course, be expected for
a figure of Ezekiel's station in life. David Carr, in his insightful monograph concerning
textuality and education in ancient Israel, remarks that Ezekiel would have received an
education within the context of the priesthood,
332
an education that certainly included the
awareness of written texts, since [p]riests in the ancient world were among the most
literate members of the populace, and priests, particularly Levites, are often depicted in
biblical narratives as the keepers of the texts....
333
Furthermore, Carr draws attention to the fact that Ezekiel depicts himself as
having consumed God's prophecy written on a scroll (Ezek 2:9-3:3). Ezekiel is told to
proclaim the contents of this ingested scroll to his audience a clear function of his
accustomed priestly role as the one who not only keeps texts but who then teaches them
to the broader public. Carr remarks that this passage is reminiscent of Jeremiah 36,
wherein Jeremiah is able to dictate the entire contents of his earlier scroll (and more!) to
331Ellen F. Davis, Swallowing the Scroll: Textuality and the Dynamics of Discourse in Ezekiel's Prophecy,
JSOTSupp 78 (Sheffield, England: Almond Press, 1989), 40.
332David McLain Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2005), 149.
333Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart, 152; Similarly Davis, Swallowing the Scroll, 40.
135
Baruch after the first copy was destroyed....Both texts Ezekiel's call and the Jeremiah
narrative envision a world where figures like prophets could hold entire texts in their
minds and hearts which they then orally communicated to other Israelites.
334
In addition to Israelite traditions noted above, scholars also sometimes note, with
less frequency, Ezekiel's possible allusions to Deuteronomy from Zimmerli, who sees
almost no reference at all in Ezekiel to Deuteronomic thought and language, to Risa
Kohn, who states that Ezekiel was thoroughly familiar with Deuteronomic thought and
language and employs these with a degree of acceptance.
335
But to be sure, Kohn also
argues that Ezekiel ignores and contradicts certain aspects of Deuteronomic thought, as
well. She notes that quite a bit in D would have been anathema to the Priestly writer:
general Levite priesthood; the importance of the king and the prophet; the tradition of
Aaron as sinner.
336
Her larger thesis is that while Ezekiel shows literary awareness of the
already-extant P and D, and while he displays far heavier connections with P, the prophet
does not feel inextricably bound to either source as an ultimately inviolable text.
337
This
position is similar to that of Corrine Patton, who states that Ezekiel was indeed
334Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart, 149. Carr goes on to note that Ezekiel's prophecy also contains
a directed written element, as Ezekiel is commanded to write down his vision of the restored Temple
for a later generation (Ezek 43:11).
335Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 46; Risa Levitt Kohn, A New Heart and a New Soul: Ezekiel, the Exile and the
Torah, JSOTSupp 358 (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002); Kohn, A Prophet like Moses?; cf.
Robert R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 283-284.
For a survey of various representative views, see Carley, Ezekiel Among the Prophets, 57-61. Carley
himself seems to advocate that Ezekiel adopts certain aspects of Deuteronomic theology while rejecting
others.
336Kohn, A Prophet like Moses? 246.
337For Kohn's survey of Ezekiel's interaction with Priestly language, from straightforward appropriations
of laws and terminology, to ironic twists in which a phrase used positively in P is sardonically applied
against the people by Ezekiel, see Kohn, A Prophet like Moses? 239-243. For Ezekiel's interaction
with Deuteronomic language, see idem, 246-248. In my view, while Ezekiel finds more with which to
disagree than agree in Deuteronomic ideology, it seems clear that one point of strong agreement is the
unacceptability of high places (see Ezekiel's condemnation of these in Ezekiel 6).
136
intimately familiar with various theological schools, but felt in no way bound to
those traditions.
338

Kohn does not accept the argument that where Ezekiel contradicts or perhaps
seems unaware of P, the P source must still be non-existent or only partially completed
and still fluid. That argument assumes that Ezekiel as a priest would inherently be
incapable of breaking with any aspect of the literature produced by his social circle; ergo,
where he breaks with it, he must be doing so unknowingly due to a lack of a completed P
source. In contradistinction to this assumption, Kohn remarks, rightly in my view, that
Ezekiel does not see himself as a fervent and loyal preserver of Priestly or
Deuteronomic tradition. Kohn writes that although Ezekiel appropriates terminology
from P (including H) in a positive way, P language is not simply imitated in Ezekiel. It is
twisted, poeticized, disarticulated and reconstituted. Ezekiel knows P, quotes P, but also
modifies it at will, adding and deleting material as suits his personal agenda and the
current circumstances of his audience.
339

With respect to D, Kohn remarks, As is the case with P, however, Ezekiel adopts
aspects of D's history while ignoring or even contradicting others.
340
According to Kohn,
this is because Ezekiel sees himself as the new Moses. If Moses was prophet, lawgiver,
and an intimate of God as much as any human can be, then Ezekiel as a prophet who
functions as a new Moses does not necessarily see himself bound to all the legal or
narrative traditions that have gone before him. Similarly, Kutsko remarks: Ezekiel's
oracles mark both the preservation and interpretation of traditions.... Ezekiel then is both
338Patton, "I Myself Gave Them Laws That Were Not Good", 73.
339Kohn, A New Heart and a New Soul, 84-85.
340Ibid., 95.
137
a receiver of traditum and a voice of traditio.
341
And it is the context of the exile, with the
dynamics of textual conservation and conversation, that facilitates innovation.
342

I concur with this characterization of Ezekiel, and presently will investigate his
ability to subvert certain aspects of Deuteronomistic theology. Three
studies
343
particularly stand out in their detailed exposition that Ezekiel, while aware of
Deuteronomy, chose not to support Deuteronomistic theology but rather to undercut it.
Ezekiel, it is argued, reveals this intent particularly in his twentieth chapter; I shall
discuss these studies further below in the context of my own analysis.
Here I wish to note that if undermining the Deuteronomistic school were among
Ezekiel's purposes, it is possible that he might not have been even the first to attempt
such a thing, due to the totalizing claims Deuteronomy lodges for its own tenets. Carr
draws attention to the well-known passage in Jeremiah wherein the prophet refers to his
theological opponents as those who claim we are wise and the Torah of Yahweh is with
us, when in reality, the prophet charges, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a
lie (Jer 8:8). While the identity of these opponents remains in dispute and is beyond the
purview of this study, Carr posits that (despite the later Deuteronomistic redaction of
Jeremiah) the prophet could have been leveling his accusations at proponents of the
Deuteronomic school, since Deuteronomy is well known for its exclusive, totalizing
341On use of these terms in particular, see Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1985).
342Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth, 14.
343Patton, "I Myself Gave Them Laws That Were Not Good" ; Scott Hahn and John S. Bergsma, What
Laws were "Not Good"? A Canonical Approach to the Theological Problem of Ezekiel 20:25-26,
Journal of Biblical Literature 123, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 201-218; Jacques Pons, Le vocabulaire d'z
20 : le prophte s'oppose la vision deutronomiste de l'histoire, in Ezekiel and His Book: Textual and
Literary Criticism and Their Interrelation, ed. Johan Lust (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1986), 214-233.
138
claims upon Mosaic history and Israelite practice.
344

The possible connection of these opponents with Deuteronomy, according to Carr,
is potentially bolstered by the fact that Deuteronomy represents a blend of wisdom and
torah, reminiscent of the wording of Jeremiah's accusation. With regard to the
totalizing claims of Deuteronomy toward its version of Torah, S. Dean McBride writes:
Conception of tr as 'teaching' or 'instruction' has promoted a much too facile
understanding of Deuteronomy itself as essentially a didactic, moralizing, or homiletical
work. More importantly, neither term conveys the normative, prescriptive force of tr in
Deuteronomy.
345
McBride goes on to argue convincingly that the stipulations (0,:*)
of Deuteronomy are in fact intended as sanctioned policies to be strictly followed by each
citizen of Israel as a body of law; the observance of Deuteronomy is not intended to be
optional or to be part of the spiritual life only.
So too Patrick Miller, who observes that while Deuteronomy was formulated in a
particular historical context, it was nonetheless conceived as a constitutional text meant
to structure a broad spectrum of Israelite life religious, judicial, economic, political, and
military practice.
346
To underscore this characteristic of Deuteronomy, Miller points to the
striking requirement that nothing be added or subtracted from this purported Mosaic
344For the argument that Deuteronomy was in fact intended to serve not just as instruction for religious life
but also as a true state regulatory constitution, with all the consequent implications for major
influence on the polity, see S. Dean McBride, Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of
Deuteronomy, Interpretation 41, no. 3 (July 1987): 229-244.
345McBride, Polity of the Covenant People , 232-233. For the classical view that Deuteronomy presents
a collection of theological precepts and guidelines alone, rather than understanding itself as true law,
see Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. D.M.G. Stalker (New York: Harper, 1962), 195-
203, 219-231; Calum M Carmichael, The Laws of Deuteronomy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1974), 17-52; Mayes, Deuteronomy, 116-117.
346Patrick D. Miller, Constitution or Instruction? The Purpose of Deuteronomy, in Constituting the
Community: Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride, Jr, ed. John Strong
and Steven Tuell (Winona Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 135.
139
teaching (Deut 4:2, 13:1).
347
Concerning the radical and potentially inflammatory claims Deuteronomy makes
with regard to Israelite tradition and practice, Carr incisively posits:
Jeremiah 8:8-9 may be a rare reflection of the sort of controversy that ensued when
scribal masters like them instituted a radical revision of earlier traditions used in
instruction....What makes the D vision particularly unique, especially in Deuteronomy
itself, is the totalizing claim it makes for the instruction advocated in it. This is not an
instruction to be set alongside others....Rather, the book constantly presents itself as a
yet earlier and more foundational Mosaic torah. This is the torah that Israelites are to
recite all day and night. There is no room for another.
348

This is to say that Deuteronomy, as a text presenting itself to be the foundational
and exclusive Mosaic Torah for Israel, placed itself already in a position to be a very
strong potential target for an educated objector. Ezekiel, as a priest, would not have
lacked reasons to dispute Deuteronomy quite materially, a matter that I will examine
more fully below. At this juncture, I will but note that one of these reasons strikes at the
very heart of a matter of basic identity: those who are permitted to be priests. The lack of
distinction in Deuteronomic thought between Aaronide priests and all other Levites is
well known: Deuteronomy refers only to the levitical priests ( 0,,(/ 0,3'.'),
illustrating either a lack of knowledge of distinctions within the Priestly circle, or an
outright disagreement with such distinctions. This Deuteronomic tendency to make no
distinction between priests and Levites, in a manner suggesting equal status among
members of that tribe, is broadly acknowledged. Jacob Milgrom argues that the
Deuteronomic position is deliberately polemical, noting that while D permits the whole
347On the subject of inner-biblical exegesis, the phenomenon of biblical writers changing, updating, or
commenting on other biblical texts, see recently Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious
Renewal in Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
348Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart, 141-142.
140
tribe of Levi to officiate at the sanctuary, P, on the other hand, separates the Levite from
the priest by an unbridgeable chasm: Levites may never officiate at the altar or benefit
from its sacrifices.
349
Haran further elaborates:
According to P and Ezek. 40-48 a Levite can never become a priest but even when he
occupies a sub-priestly rank he is present at the place of worship, he has his own tasks,
and a certain sanctity of his own. According to D every Levite has the right to become a
priest but so long as he has not done so he is far away from the place of worship and
there is no real difference between him and any ordinary Israelite. The phrase 'the
Levitical priests' is characteristic of D, whereas the mention of Levites in
contradistinction to priests, or in contradistinction to Aaron, or the combination 'the
priests and the Levites' as an expression of two categories of status and function will
only occur within the priestly doctrine or when describing a reality based upon this
doctrine.... It might be said that the conjunctive waw appearing between the priests and
the Levites constitutes the firm and concrete line of differentiation between P's and D's
views.
350

Regardless of whether one concludes that the difference constitutes dispute or
ignorance, the disparity is irreconcilable on a matter as fundamental as identity.
Moreover, the tradition of Aaron as a sinful incompetent and, at worst, a flagrant apostate
in the Deuteronomic and JE sources would have been an outrage of the highest order to
the Priestly circle that set Aaron at its head -- the archetypal priest designated by Yahweh
himself at Sinai. Frank Cross notes, If the Yahwist gives short shrift to Aaron, the
Deuteronomic source mentions Aaron only to condemn him: 'And Yahweh was furious
with Aaron to the point of destroying him, but I [Moses] interceded for Aaron in that
time'
351
(Deut 9:20). Several Deuteronomic sacrificial laws would also have been
abhorrent to the Priestly circle, which I will discuss in further detail below as part of an
identification of the not-good laws to which Ezekiel refers in Ezek 20:25.
349Jacob Milgrom, Profane Slaughter and a Formulaic Key to the Composition of Deuteronomy,
Hebrew Union College Annual 47 (1976): 11.
350Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 63.
351Frank Moore Cross, The Priestly Houses of Early Israel, in Constituting the Community: Studies on
the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride, Jr, ed. John Strong and Steven Tuell (Winona
Lake, Ind: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 47; cf. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 207.
141
Corrine Patton has examined Ezekiel's relationship to Exodus traditions, both P
and D, in an attempt to discover the meaning of the prophet's statement that Yahweh gave
the Israelites not good laws in the wilderness (Ezek 20:25). This question has, of
course, been a particularly thorny one for biblical scholars and theologians. Patton's
investigation suggests that Ezekiel 20 incorporates both Priestly and Deuteronomic
language in an apparently self-conscious manner in order to evoke the Exodus tradition in
his audience's minds.
352
Once the prophet has evoked this tradition and captured his
audience's attention with both subject content and language, he may then reinterpret it or
even invert it entirely according to his larger message. We shall return to this question of
the use of language and the way in which Ezekiel wields such language.
The result, Patton reflects, is that Ezekiel has manipulated the historical
traditions in a carefully crafted, strictly patterned chapter.
353
Such a technique is a
powerful spoke in the larger wheel of Ezekiel's presentation of himself as the new
lawgiver charged by God -- the new Moses, the prophet of whom the people come to
inquire of God, the prophet who like Moses comes face to face with God's Glory (Ezekiel
1) and who like Moses receives the divine schema, this time for the ideal future of
restoration (Ezekiel 40-48). In this overarching structure, Patton argues, the laws that
were not good represent the laws before the nation's fall and the Temple's destruction.
Patton is not, however, much more specific on whether these laws included the entire
legal tradition or only some subset of it, though the implication seems to be the former.
However, it is unlikely that Ezekiel saw all the monarchic-era laws as not good, since
352Patton, "I Myself Gave Them Laws That Were Not Good" .
353Ibid., 77-78.
142
Ezekiel is nothing if not firmly ingrained within Priestly tradition.
Taking Ezek 20:25-26 as a reference to divinely-sanctioned child sacrifice
commanded as a means to defile the sinful Israelites (as most scholars have heretofore
done), Patton states that Ezek 20.25.... asserts that child sacrifice is simply a
paradigmatic law of a law code meant to bring death, not life. In a divinely granted law
code, if only one law was granted in order to lead the people into sin, then the whole legal
collection can never bring life; it is a law code that cannot be the basis for any
restoration.
354
Put succinctly, Patton asserts, What is clear, however, is that the
experience of national defeat called the very legitimacy of the laws he knew into
question. Any dream of restoration had to address the problem of the 'no good'
laws.
355
The one to mediate the new vision for Israel without these no good laws was
Ezekiel, which is most clear in Ezekiel 40-48. As Patton contends, these chapters, as well
as ch. 20 and its implications, indicate that Ezekiel appears not to have considered the
event at Sinai to be necessarily a unique experience. For Ezekiel, Sinai may indeed have
happened with Moses as the receiver of a set of laws for a certain epoch in Israelite
history; but now, as that epoch drew to a close with the destruction of the Temple and the
defeat of the nation, a new Sinai with a new Moses could emerge.
Indeed, Ezekiel 40-48 shows Ezekiel in Moses' role, particularly as recorded in
Exodus 34-40; he is brought to a mountain by God, who gives him a written law and an
outline for the idealized restored Temple, and he is to bring God's words to the rest of the
people.
356
As has often been noted, however, the plans for this restored Temple do not
354Ibid., 79.
355Ibid., 84.
356Ibid., 85.
143
represent a replica of the old Temple or the Tabernacle, nor are the cultic calendar or
procedures exactly the same. Given Ezekiel's demonstrated familiarity with the Priestly
writings elsewhere, I am not inclined to see this as an indication of Ezekiel's lack of
awareness of such things. Rather, as Patton points out, A close examination of these
laws reveals that a complete reorganization of Israelite society was imagined by the
prophet.
357
As insightful as many of Patton's observations are, she still does not specify
clearly which laws Ezekiel targets as not good and as unworthy of the future restored
Israel; her implication seems to be that Ezekiel deems nearly all of the monarchic-era
laws insufficient for Israel's restoration. Yet Ezekiel's clear affinity for Priestly laws and
traditions (which Patton acknowledges) poses a certain problem for that position.
However, in particular a study by Jacques Pons and a recent article by Scott Hahn and
John Bergsma make an excellent case for Deuteronomy as the target for Ezekiel's vitriol,
culminating especially in the thesis of Hahn and Bergsma -- with Ezek 20:25-26. I will
explore their thesis below, after considering ways in which Ezekiel may manifest
opposition to Deuteronomy elsewhere. As we make these considerations, we ought to
bear in mind the words of Ellen Davis:
For much of the power of biblical imagery, and especially Ezekiel's, derives from its
relation to earlier language. Ezekiel is not content to overthrow the familiar, as any
clever parvenu could do. More often, his strategy is to work with patterns already
established in texts or in popular usage....He shows his genius and his mastery of the
tradition by appropriating its symbols, then complicating and deepening them.
358

To this end, Pons looks at the instances of Deuteronomic vocabulary in Ezek 20
and concludes that the prophet wields this vocabulary ironically, to subvert and even
357Ibid., 88.
358Davis, Swallowing the Scroll, 93-94.
144
parody the Deuteronomic portrayal of Israel's history.
359
It is not our task here to
reproduce the work that Pons has done, but one example he elucidates is Ezekiel's
repeated phrase, the abominations of their ancestors ( 0=($# =$5(=), referring to the
Israelite forebears whom Yahweh led out of Egypt. This phrase is employed in naked
contrast to the familiar Deuteronomic view of the ancestors as the flawed but
essentially faithful Yahwists to whom the land was promised. Significantly, Deuteronomy
and the Deuteronomistic History use the word =$5(= (abominations) most often in
reference to the abominations of the various nations ( , 0,15 0,(%) whose practices
Israelites are commanded to eschew. The abominations are never coupled with Israelite
ancestors.
Furthermore, in Deuteronomistic writings the word 0=($# evokes the revered
patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were the first recipients of Yahweh's election
of Israel according to that tradition not their descendants who were slaves in Egypt, as
Ezek 20:5 implies. In this way, Ezekiel leaves these revered patriarchs decidedly out of
the equation. He also avoids naming the three paradigmatic ancestors Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, other than with circumlocution, stating that Yahweh made himself known to
the descendants of the house of Jacob in Egypt (20:5). No doubt to name them in a
specific way would evoke memories of their (admittedly flawed) righteousness and their
status as beloved to Yahweh, which would undermine Ezekiel's rhetorical aim to
encapsulate the history of Israel's sinfulness.
360
On this question, Daniel Block offers:
359Pons, Le vocabulaire d'z 20 .
360So also Greenberg, who remarks, Ezekiel's disregard of the patriarchs is perhaps deliberate....chosen
for the effect gained by juxtaposing God's total gracious commitment to Israel with Israel's total
rejection of him from their first encounter with him as a nation, which was in Egypt. Ezekiel could not
well have started Israel's career of apostasy with the patriarchs, the archetypal pious recipients of God's
145
Why he began his history of Israel in Egypt rather than with the patriarchs is not
clear....Perhaps the prophet perceived the patriarchs as the pious archetypal recipients of
God's blessings (cf. 33:24). More likely, he seems to have grasped the full significance
of Israel's encounter with Yahweh in Egypt. The patriarchal traditions were too closely
linked with El Shadday, the divine name associated with promises of covenant
relationship. But Egypt is the place where promises are fulfilled. According to Exod
6:2-8, it is as Yahweh, the same God's covenant name, that this transpires.
361
Another example Pons highlights is Ezekiel's claim in ch. 20 that the people's
expulsion from the land for their iniquities had already been ordained in the wilderness
period before they ever even entered the land, because of the wickedness they had
already amassed. Such a statement may be perplexing in light of Ezekiel's repeated
insistence elsewhere that transgenerational retribution is not the culprit for Israel's current
defeat, since the current generation ought to accept full responsibility for its own sins
(e.g., Ezekiel 14 and 18). Pons suggests that the assignation of guilt all the way back to
the wilderness period, despite its potential to contradict the prophet's statements
elsewhere, represents Ezekiel's rejection of the Deuteronomistic claim that the sins of the
late King Manasseh caused Israel to invoke Yahweh's wrath.
The sins of Manasseh theory was, of course, a prime example of exactly the
transgenerational retribution prominent in Deuteronomistic theology, and which Ezekiel
rejects in ch. 14 and 18. By painting a picture of Israel's past as one of total sinfulness all
the way back into the wilderness period and even earlier in Egypt, Ezekiel seeks
rhetorically to force his audience to acknowledge that the history of their misdeeds, and
those of their nation, stretches back far beyond any sins the recently-passed King
Manasseh could have committed.
blessings. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 364.
361Block, The Book of Ezekiel, 627-628. Darr also considers these possible answers. Darr, The Book of
Ezekiel, 1278.
146
In my view, Ezekiel here suspends his normal aversion to transgenerational
retribution in order (first) to appropriate the Deuteronomistic advocacy of this type of
retribution and (second), once appropriated, to turn it back on itself and reject outright the
sins of Manasseh theory, throwing Israel's wrath-provoking transgressions backward
into the earliest stage of its history. This early stage of Israel's history was, by contrast,
considered something of a honeymoon period in Deuteronomistic theology (see, e.g.,
its portrayal in Jeremiah 2:2-6 and Hosea 13:4-5). Therefore, Ezekiel here uses
Deuteronomistic theology against itself, and for this larger polemical purpose,
rhetorically suspends his normal view toward transgenerational retribution. Nor, I might
add, should we be overly surprised that Ezekiel would employ such a strategy here and
risk a perceived contradiction with his earlier statements on retribution. Katheryn Darr
aptly observes, In the face of this apparent contradiction [advocacy of transgenerational
retribution], we must remember that the prophet was no systematic theologian. With each
oracle, he constructs an argument and utilizes those rhetorical strategies best suited to
advance it.
362
In my view, as stated above, his strategy in this case is to appropriate and
then subvert Deuteronomistic theology (having already earlier rejected it in ch. 14 and
18).
There are other clues, as well, to indicate that Ezekiel uses Deuteronomic imagery
and language in ch. 20 for the purpose of undermining it. The expression 2,5 4(* (to pity,
362Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1282-1283. Similarly Paul Joyce: ....Ezekiel's concerns are in no way
systematic; rather his preaching employs a range of motifs....to further his primary purpose of stressing
the imminent and thorough judgment of Israel by Yahweh. Paul Joyce, Divine Initiative and Human
Response, 77. Also Daniel Block: But Ezekiel is a preacher, not a chronicler or a systematic
theologian; he offers an interpretation of Israel's history, not an objective record of the past. Block, The
Book of Ezekiel, 640.
147
to spare; lit. eye spare) is used only with the Israelites as the subject in Deuteronomy,
where they are commanded to show no pity toward (1) their enemies in the land, and
(2) apostates among themselves. They are to annihilate them completely.
363
In Ezekiel,
however, 4(* never appears with the Israelites as its subject, but only with Yahweh,
either to decree that he will not spare the Israelites at the time of the nation's fall to
Babylonia,
364
or (once) to remind the Israelites that he magnanimously did spare them
when he should have annihilated them in the wilderness.
365
In Ezek 20:17, Yahweh states
that he spared the Israelites in the wilderness after the Exodus despite the fact that their
sins warranted their destruction.
The familiar Deuteronomistic phrase with a mighty hand and an outstretched
arm ( ',(+3 5(;)$( ':)* &,$) is found in Ezek 20:33, 34. In v. 33 it is accompanied by
the declaration that Yahweh will be king over the Israelites; in v. 34 the phrase appears
in the context of Yahweh's gathering the dispersed Israelites from the lands to which they
have been scattered. However, Ezekiel does not merely employ this Deuteronomistic
phrase by itself: in both instances where it appears, Ezekiel adds and outpoured fury (
'.(7> '1*$(). Thus the prior expression becomes with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm and outpoured fury, a significant expansion of the Deuteronomistic
rendering.
Ezekiel conceives such an adjustment because the phrase in Deuteronomistic
writing is often used to refer to Yahweh's deliverance of Israel from its enemies most
notably the Exodus from Egypt. Ezekiel appropriates the famous phrase and nearly turns
363See Deut 7:16; 13:8; 19:13, 21; 25:12.
364Also Kohn, A New Heart and a New Soul, 91.
365For the occurrences of 4(*, see Ezek 5:11; 7:4, 9; 8:18; 9:5, 10; 20:17; 24:14.
148
it on its head: in his view God will act with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and
outpoured fury, not to deliver a faithful Israel from villainous enemies, but at long last to
assert God's kingship over a rebellious Israel and to claim them from the lands to which
God himself had dispersed them.
366
These considerations return us to the question of Ezek 20:25-26 and the thesis of
Hahn and Bergsma, who contend that v. 25 refers to the Deuteronomic law code itself and
v. 26 specifically to the Deuteronomic law concerning the sacrifice of firstlings. First,
Hahn and Bergsma convincingly establish the setting for the second law-giving in
which these verses take place, the first lawgiving (at Sinai, the source of God's initial
good laws) having been noted by the prophet already in Ezek 20:11-12. This second
lawgiving in this chapter occurs for the second generation of the post-Exodus wilderness
wanderings. Katheryn Darr notes that with vv. 25-26 we can indeed speak of a second
giving of the law. This lawgiving is the antithesis of the first (vv. 11-12).
367
Yahweh
hands down these antithetical laws in response to the rebellion of the second generation
(Ezek 20:21-22), which Hahn and Bergsma contend should be identified with the
notorious apostasy of Beth-Peor/Baal-Peor.
368
Notably, Deuteronomy sets itself as the
366Also Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1-24, 415; Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1-24, 650; Greenberg, Ezekiel
1-20, 372; Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1288. Greenberg observes that outpoured fury here echoes
not only vss. 8, 13, and 21, in which it is said that in the past God desisted from pouring his fury upon
Israel, but also the repeated predictions that God will pour out his fury on Jerusalem, found in 7:8, 9:8;
14:19; 22:22.... We conclude that Ezekiel characteristically utilizes a traditional phrase with a shocking
twist: in the new Exodus the ferocity that tradition asserted was unleashed upon Egypt in the old one
will be turned against rebellious Israel in order to force it finally to accept what it never had before
God's kingship over it in the land he chose for it. Similarly, Block notes the striking change from the
traditional portrayal of God's kingship as positive for Israel, to negative, commenting that the force of
divine wrath that Pharaoh had once experienced will now be felt by Israel.
367Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1283.
368The terms Beth-Peor and Baal-Peor denote the same place and event; Deuteronomistic texts employ
both terms, while Priestly texts seem to prefer Baal-Peor. Beth-Peor occurs in Deut 3:29; 4:46; 34:6;
Josh 13:20. Baal-Peor occurs in Deut 4:3 (twice); Josh 9:10; Num 25:3, 5; Ps 106:28.
149
lawgiving explicitly designed for this second generation (Deut 2:14-16; 28:69), and
Deuteronomy is clear that the people are still at Beth-Peor (Deut 4:44-46), the site of that
generation's quintessential apostasy.
369
Thus, already in Deuteronomy we see a setting
strikingly familiar to the setting in Ezekiel 20: the second wilderness generation, having
committed grave apostasy against Yahweh, stands at the time of their offense to receive a
second set of laws from Yahweh.
Hahn and Bergsma next elucidate the long-established observation that in Ezek
20:25, the prophet refers to the not good laws with the masculine 0,:*, yet
everywhere else uses the feminine =(:* to refer to God's good laws. Hahn and Bergsma
point out that significantly, Deut 11:32 and 12:1 use the masculine 0,:* to introduce the
Deuteronomic law code, and the masculine forms of the word are found all across
Deuteronomy with twice the frequency of =(:*.
370

Daniel Block remarks that the sudden switch to 0,:* from =(:* represents
Ezekiel's effort to incite the attention of his audience, this unexpected term marking a
clear and unequivocal distinction between these new not good laws given to the second
generation, and the older good laws given to the first generation (and which the second
generation had been admonished to follow).
371
Darr also notes this sharp difference,
stating that Ezekiel's abrupt switch to the masculine form represents his differentiation
between these laws and the ones given in v. 11.
372
Hahn and Bergsma's argument that with
0,:* Ezekiel draws a connection to Deuteronomy is worthy of consideration,
369Hahn and Bergsma, What laws were "not good"?, 206.
370Ibid., 207.
371Block, The Book of Ezekiel, 636, 640.
372Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1283.
150
particularly in light of the setting of these new laws (noted above), and of Ezekiel's stance
throughout this chapter, which contradicts so many traditions important to the
Deuteronomistic school.
This stance continues with the tantalizing possibility that Ezek 20:25-26
represents an indictment of Deuteronomic sacrificial law. We have already discussed
earlier in this section some of the problems that a member of the Priestly community may
legitimately have had with many Deuteronomic provisions, assumptions, and assertions.
Such observations are not new. Yet it must be emphasized that perhaps nowhere would
problems be more critical than with the Deuteronomic sacrificial system.
The provision for non-sacrificial slaughter of ritually clean animals in Deut 12:15-
25 offends the very heart of the Priestly sacrificial system. The Priestly requirement that
these animals be sacrificed and not simply slaughtered, and that their blood be dashed
against Yahweh's altar rather than poured out on the ground like water (contra Deut
12:15), is to make restitution for the life of the animal (Lev 17:1-11).
373
To this end, Lev
17:3-4 states that anyone who slaughters an ox, sheep, or goat -- ritually clean animals --
without doing so as an offering at the sanctuary incurs bloodguilt ( #('' >,#/ $>*, 0&,
v. 4). Lev 17:11 concludes that the life of the flesh, it is in the blood. I have granted it to
you upon the altar, to ransom on behalf of your lives, for it is the blood that ransoms by
means of the life. Jacob Milgrom observes of these verses: Thus the altar legitimizes
animal slaughter: it is the divinely appointed instrument of ransoming the life of the
person who has taken animal life.
374
Further, the improper disposal of the animal's
373See also the discussion of this matter in Ch. 3 of this study.
374Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 251. This is not to say that ransoming the life of the slaughterer or making
expiation for the animal life constitutes the entire purpose behind pouring the blood upon the altar.
151
blood is a capital violation. Verses 3-4 now make this explicit: animal slaughter
constitutes murder except at the authorized altar. Verse 11 complements the indictment
with the remedy and its rationale: the blood must be brought to the altar to ransom the
murder of the animal....
375
Herbert Brichto, while not denying Milgrom's assertion that the altar serves an
expiatory function for the animal's killing, further proposes that ransoming by means of
the blood is not only an expiation but also a composition, in the sense of correcting an
imbalance between two parties. In this case, the two parties are the deity and the human,
since the human has appropriated a life that properly belongs to the deity. An imbalance
Indeed, it need hardly be stated that the sacrificial system, including blood symbolism, contains
multiple complex layers and cannot be encapsulated within one purpose alone. Not all animal sacrifices,
for instance, are of the same type or serve the same function (e.g., the 0,1/> does not serve the same
function as the =#+*). It is not our purpose here to discuss the vast topic of sacrificial theory and the
multivalence of blood symbolism; but for a recent overview of scholarship on sacrifice involving blood
manipulation in particular, see William K. Gilders, Blood Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible: Meaning and
Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). For a concise survey of the different views
toward blood in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Greece, particularly with regard to sacrifice, see Dennis
J. McCarthy, Symbolism of Blood and Sacrifice, Journal of Biblical Literature 88, no. 2 (June 1969):
166-176; McCarthy, Further Notes on the Symbolism of Blood and Sacrifice, Journal of Biblical
Literature 92, no. 2 (June 1973): 205-210. McCarthy argues that the Israelite sacrificial use of and
attitude toward blood as life, and not as death, is unique, concluding that the reservation of blood to
God because it was life and so divine is specifically Israelite. McCarthy, Symbolism of Blood and
Sacrifice, 176. For a quite different view, that the blood itself possesses intrinsic magical efficacy due
to potent properties that make deities do the bidding of those offering blood, see Baruch A. Levine, In
the Presence of the Lord: A Study of Cult and Some Cultic Terms in Ancient Israel, Studies in Judaism
in Late Antiquity 5 (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 67-69. For a concise overview of the history of sacrificial
theory, as well as a proposal for both biblical sacrifice and purity laws as an imitatio Dei, see
Jonathan Klawans, Pure Violence: Sacrifice and Defilement in Ancient Israel, Harvard Theological
Review 94, no. 2 (April 2001): 133-155; Klawans, Sacrifice in Ancient Israel: Pure Bodies,
Domesticated Animals, and the Divine Shepherd, in A Communion of Subjects, ed. Paul Waldau and
Kimberley Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 65-80; see also Jonathan Klawans,
Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Klawans proposes that the Israelite sacrificial and
purity/defilement systems are both intimately linked and have similarly symbolic meanings. Klawans
acknowledges that these systems resist simple categorization, but argues that one of the many meanings
at work encompasses both purity and animal sacrificial procedure: a human imitation of God, including
God as the giver and taker of life. However, for our limited purposes, we but recognize that the Priestly
theology of blood and life explicitly articulated in Lev 17:3-14 reveals a radical difference between
Priestly and Deuteronomic cultic norms.
375Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 711.
152
results from a damage or deprivation inflicted upon one by the other. Equilibrium is
restored by a process which consists of a transfer of something of value.... from the
injuring party to the injured.
376
This process of ransoming with altar blood, according to
Brichto, is a quid pro quo.... deriving from a recognition of the sole lordship over life of
the One and only Source of life. The taking of (domestic) animal life is licit only if the
slaughtering takes place on an altar, i.e., God's table.... At some time the notion
developed that the blood, the life-essence, pouring down the altar's flanks, represented a
symbolic return of the blood to its Creator in acknowledgement of the gift which it was
His alone to give.
377

Milgrom's and Brichto's views are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they consist of
different emphases, both of which, in my judgment, are accurate interpretations of the
necessity to designate the blood to the altar, as spelled out in Lev 17:1-11. Both these
interpretations assign a symbolic meaning to the blood rite, rather than magical efficacy
as Levine suggests;
378
but regardless of any single purpose or meaning the blood rite
might have, it is indisputably a matter of ultimate importance in Priestly theology to
dispose of the blood properly.
Ronald Hendel proposes, rightly in my view, still another layer of significance to
the Priestly injunction to dash the blood of sacrifices upon the altar: communication,
relationship, and sign. In an investigation seeking to illuminate the symbolism of Ex
24:3-8 (the sprinkling of blood of the covenant over the people) as a key to the cultural
376Herbert Chanan Brichto, On Slaughter and Sacrifice, Blood and Atonement, Hebrew Union College
Annual 47 (1976): 27-28.
377Ibid., 28, 41.
378Levine, In the Presence of the Lord, 67-69.
153
system of sacrifice, Hendel posits a common communicative significance in the
manipulation of blood:
[T]he blood, which is described as a 'sign' in the p

sa ritual, also functions as a sign in

the "
e
l mm ! and l %$ sacrifices.... The blood that remains on the side of the altar long
after the ceremony is concluded serves as a tangible sign of the remembrance and the
corresponding blessing [Exod 20:24]. It is not only a part of the ceremony, but a
remnant and symbol of it.
379

Although it is only the blood of ritually clean animals that must be poured onto
the altar, in Priestly legislation even the blood of ritually unclean animals not suitable for
sacrifice game animals must be covered with earth as enjoined in Lev 17:13. Lev
17:14 goes on to reiterate twice the sentiment in v. 11: For the life of all flesh is its
blood. Thus game animals may be killed non-sacrificially, but their blood is still
considered sacred and must be buried in the earth. Milgrom remarks: Thus vv 10-14
constitute a bipartite law for disposing of the blood of all victims killed for their flesh: the
blood of game must be covered, and the blood of sacrificial animals must be drained
upon the altar. Moreover, it implies that just as the uncovered blood of game will cry out
for vengeance, so the improperly disposed blood of a sacrificial animal will also condemn
the life of its slaughterer.
380
In order to appreciate fully the radically different nature of the Deuteronomic code
from the Priestly code on this matter, one must consider Deut 12:15-16. These verses
state that not only may ritually clean animals be slaughtered non-sacrificially with no
requirement for their blood to be dashed against an altar, but also that their blood is to be
poured out onto the ground like water, without even the requirement that it be buried
379 Ronald S. Hendel, Sacrifice as a Cultural System: The Ritual Symbolism of Exodus 24:3-8,
Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 101, no. 3 (1989): 387.
380 Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 709.
154
with earth. As Hahn and Bergsma put it, The blood of clean sacrificial animals in D is
treated with less care than the blood of game animals according to P.... Thus, Ezekiel's
problem with the Deuteronomic code would have been not simply that it lowered the
legal bar but that it actually sanctioned defiling practices.
381
Moshe Weinfeld also
discusses this vital difference between the two theologies, summarizing that
Deuteronomic legislation is in effect asserting that blood has no more a sacral value than
water has.
382

We now arrive at Ezek 20:25-26, which is often considered a reference to Israelite
sacrifice of firstborn children. Here we will re-examine what exactly these verses state,
and consider the possibility that they might not refer to human firstborn sacrifice at all,
but instead function as Ezekiel's indictment of Deuteronomic legislation for animal
firstborn which is radically different from Priestly legislation. This would in turn
function as part of Ezekiel's larger rejection of various Deuteronomistic viewpoints,
which I have already discussed above. It is important to state that our consideration of
Ezek 20:25-26 relates specifically only to whether these verses refer to child sacrifice, not
generally to whether child sacrifice was considered part of normative (as opposed to
syncretistic or popular) Yahwism at some point in Israel's history. This is a much
larger question that is secondarily relevant to whether or not Ezekiel refers to child
sacrifice in 20:26. In other words, even if child sacrifice were considered normative at
some point in Israel's history, that does not by necessity bear directly on whether it plays
a role in Ezek 20:26.
381 Hahn and Bergsma, What laws were "not good"?, 210.
382 See Weinfeld's discussion in Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 213-224.
Deuteronomy does, however, prohibit the consumption of blood (Deut 12:15), as does Leviticus 17.
155
Nonetheless, for the sake of context, I will discuss this question briefly. It is
evident that some Israelites did sacrifice their children, since some of the prophets
condemned the practice outright in the name of Yahweh (see, e.g., Jer 19:5-6, which
identifies Baal as a recipient of child sacrifice and insists that it never entered Yahweh's
mind; also see Jer 7:31 and 32:35). The overwhelming impression the Hebrew Bible
gives us, though, is that such sacrifices were usually aimed toward other deities, such as
Baal or Molech.
383
Where these sacrifices are explicitly mentioned with respect to
Yahweh worship, it is to insist that such a practice is unacceptable and foreign (this holds
true even if molech is taken as the type of sacrifice rather than a deity's name).
384
For
383 Debate on the Molech cult lies outside the scope of my argument here, and would lead us far astray
from the subject at hand, especially since it is indisputable that the Molech cult is forbidden in biblical
texts, regardless of whether molech indicates a deity or a rite. For an overview of scholarship and a
succinct discussion of this cult, including whether or not Molech is a deity or the sacrificial rite itself,
see Jon Douglas Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of
Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 18-24.
Levenson argues that at least in the Hebrew Bible, Molech is a chthonic deity, the worship of whom is
excoriated by biblical writers; thus for Levenson, molech is not the name of a type of fiery sacrifice.
For contrary opinions, see Bennie H. Reynolds, Molek: Dead or Alive? The Meaning and Derivation
of mlk and -/1, in Human Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition, ed. Karin Finsterbusch, Armin
Lange, and K.F. Diethard Rmheld, Studies in the History of Religions 112 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 133-
150; Armin Lange, "They Burn Their Sons and Daughters -- That was No Command of Mine" (Jer
7.31): Child Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible and in the Deuteronomistic Jeremiah Redaction, in idem,
109-132; Francesca Stavrakopoulou, King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of
Historical Realities, BZAW 338 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004), 147-159; P.G. Mosca, Child
Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion: A Study in Mulk and Molech (Ph.D. diss, Harvard
University, 1975); Susan Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992). It is
worth noting for our discussion, as Levenson also summarizes and is widely acknowledged, that
sacrifice to Molech involved both girls and boys, with no particular demand for firstborn (see, e.g., Deut
8:10; 2 Kgs 23:10; Jer 7:31, 32:35). See all above; also Jacob Milgrom, Were the Firstborn Sacrificed
to YHWH? To Molek? Popular Practice or Divine Demand?, in Sacrifice in Religious Experience, ed.
A.I. Baumgarten, Studies in the History of Religions 93 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 54.
384 I do not consider Mic 6:6-8 to indicate clearly that firstborn child sacrifice was normative and positive
in Yahwism. After a poetic progression of rhetorical possibilities through which the prophet might do
homage to God (burnt offerings, year-old calves, thousands of rams, streams of oil), the prophet
concludes the possibilities in 6:7b with shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my
body for my sins? Some see this as evidence that child sacrifice was at one time part of Yahweh's
official cult. See, e.g., Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, 11-12; P.G. Mosca,
Child Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion: A Study in Mulk and Molech, 225. In my
judgment, such an interpretation does not do justice to the poetic, rhetorical aim of this passage, in
which Micah ultimately concludes in v. 8 that the answer to whether he is required to do these things is
no. The hyperbolic character of the theoretical offerings is blatant: thousands of rams, countless
156
example, Deut 12:31, part of Deuteronomy's larger admonition to the Israelites not to
worship Yahweh in the ways that the Canaanites worship their gods, states that every
abomination that Yahweh hates, they do for their gods indeed, they even burn their sons
and daughters in the fire for their gods. Deut 18:10 moves from admonition to law,
prescribing that none shall be found among you who passes his son or his daughter into
the fire.
In Priestly literature, child sacrifice is not only forbidden but also defiling to the
people and the land, and desecrating to Yahweh's name. To this effect, Lev 18:21, after
prohibiting the sacrifice of children to Molech/as a molech sacrifice, states: For you
shall not desecrate the name of your God. I am Yahweh ( ,3# -,'/# 0> =# //*= #/(
'(',). Juxtaposing the command not to desecrate the name of your God with the
recognition formula, I am Yahweh, could even be understood as a clarification: do not
desecrate the name of your God with this foreign practice, because your God is Yahweh
and he forbids it. Lev 20:3 declares that Yahweh will set my face against that man who
offers a child to Molech/as a molech, and will cut him off from his people. This is
because such an offering would be to defile my sanctuary and desecrate my holy name
( ,>&: ,1> =# //*/( ,>&: ,>&:1 #1+).
Exod 22:28b could potentially indicate that firstborn child sacrifice, at some early
point in Israel's history, might have been permitted. This verse is sometimes seen as
streams of oil, and, finally, the firstborn son all of which are rejected in favor of to do justice, to love
goodness, and to walk humbly with your God. In this escalating progression of more and more
improbable offerings, the firstborn is placed at the rhetorical peak in a final fantastic, impossible
flourish. Mic 6:6-8 confirms the exalted status of the firstborn, and recognizes that potential sacrifice of
the firstborn is not unheard of, but is not irrefutable evidence that Micah considered such sacrifice
normative. So also Roland de Vaux, Studies in Old Testament Sacrifice (Cardiff: University of Wales,
1964), 69; Milgrom, Were the Firstborn Sacrificed?, 53-54.
157
evidence that the law that a firstborn son shall be redeemed was a later change to an
earlier custom of sacrificing the firstborn son himself.
385
This is because explicit mention
of the redemption law is absent in Exod 22:28, which states only that the firstborn among
Israel's sons shall be given (root 2=3) to Yahweh. The manner of giving is not
specified, although a reiteration of the law in Exod 34:20 clarifies that human firstborn
shall be redeemed; this is also stated, e.g., in Exod 13:11-13. Priestly legislation further
deems the Levites, with their dedicated service to Yahweh, as a collective consecrated
substitute for Israel's firstborn (Num 3:40-45; 8:17-18). In Exod 22:28, however, such
clarifications are absent.
Including Exod 22:28b as part of his argument, Jon Levenson is among those who
contend that child sacrifice was normative in Yahwism (though likely not thoroughly
widespread) at some stage in Israel's history, replaced later with redemption. Yet
Levenson also observes that Exod 22:28 articulates a theological ideal about the special
place of the firstborn son, an ideal whose realization could range from literal to non-
literal implementation, that is, from sacrifice to redemption, or even to mere intellectual
assent without any cultic act whatsoever.
386

De Vaux, however, argues that Exod 22:28 articulates a theological principle that
does not state the method of giving, which is clarified by the redemption law in other
385Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree, 161; Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son,
3-4; Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 181-187; Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1284;
Mosca, Child Sacrifice in Canaanite and Israelite Religion: A Study in Mulk and Molech; Karin
Finsterbusch, The First-Born between Sacrifice and Redemption in the Hebrew Bible, in Human
Sacrifice in Jewish and Christian Tradition, ed. Karin Finsterbusch, Armin Lange, and K.F. Diethard
Rmheld, Studies in the History of Religions 112 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 91-95; Armin Lange, "They
Burn Their Sons and Daughters -- That was No Command of Mine" (Jer 7.31): Child Sacrifice in the
Hebrew Bible and in the Deuteronomistic Jeremiah Redaction, in idem, 117-118; Stavrakopoulou,
King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice, 180-183.
386Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, 9
158
texts (noted above).
387
In this vein also is Jacob Milgrom, who maintains that the
principle that the firstborn belongs to Yahweh manifests itself for humans in the act of
redemption.
388
Milgrom concludes, after surveying biblical evidence, that there is no
evidence that Israel's God ever demanded or even sanctioned this practice [child
sacrifice] (except in popular belief).
389
Levenson also notes that there is no explicit
evidence, biblical or otherwise, that child sacrifice was either normative or widespread in
Yahwism.
390

Karin Finsterbusch, who argues that child sacrifice to Yahweh was at some early
point considered lawful, concludes nonetheless with a synchronic remark:
Exod 13: 11-16 [which prescribes redemption for human firstborn] is the first law of the
first-born in the Torah. To this extent this law also carries a hermeneutic key function....
Exod 13:11-16 gives clear indications in many aspects for the understanding of further
laws; the instruction in the Book of the Covenant to give YHWH the first-born is
naturally to be understood in the light of Exod 11:13-16 in the sense of redemption of
the first-born.
391

With this basic background in mind, we turn our attention to Ezek 20:25-26. Here
Ezekiel speaks of defiling laws God gave to punish the rebellious second generation of
the Exodus, laws that were not good ( 0,$(+ #/), so that the Israelites would be
desolated (01>) by their own appalling behavior. Ezek 20:26 refers to sacrifices the
Israelites made of the firstborn ( 0*; ;+7 /.), sacrifices by which they were desolated
387 de Vaux, Studies in Old Testament Sacrifice, 71.
388 Milgrom, Were the Firstborn Sacrificed?, 53.
389Milgrom, Were the Firstborn Sacrificed?, 55. So also David P. Wright, Inventing God's Law: How the
Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2009), 312. Greenberg, too, concludes that no evidence for such an interpretation of these laws,
or for such a practice, exists; indeed, it is intrinsically improbable. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 369.
Greenberg maintains that at most, child sacrifice to Yahweh would have been a minority divergent
practice in popular rather than normative Yahwism in the period of the last kings of Judah. Levenson
rejects this distinction that popular practice and normative religious tradition were so different on this
subject. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, 8.
390 Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son, 8.
391 Finsterbusch, The First-Born between Sacrifice and Redemption in the Hebrew Bible, 108.
159
and defiled. According to Ezekiel, the people had already transgressed all of God's other
laws, which had been life-giving and thus had already defiled themselves so God
responded by handing down a law so horrifying and defiling that the Israelites would,
ironically, be sure to follow it. And follow it they did, according to this passage, thus
finally obeying a divine law paradoxically, one that was not life-giving, but rather
something in which they could not find life (v. 26). Yet such a law suited their character,
at least in the rhetorical aim of Ezekiel's twentieth chapter.
What was the nature of this desolating firstborn sacrifice? Many scholars have
assumed this is child sacrifice,
392
due both to its characterization as defiling and to the
verb ;$5 in the Hiphil, to cause to pass over/to set aside, because this form is
sometimes connected in the Bible with child sacrifice. But use of this verb alone is not
enough to prove a reference here to child sacrifice, since other verbs are also used to
describe it in the Bible,
393
and since Hiphil ;$5 appears in many contexts throughout the
Bible and is not restricted to child sacrifice. In Exod 13:12, for example, it appears in the
order to set aside every firstborn as Yahweh's, not just human firstborn but also animal.
Furthermore, Ezek 20:26 states that the Israelites were defiled by their gifts of all
firstborn, literally every opener of the womb ( 0*; ;+7 /.). Yet this phrase, as Hahn
and Bergsma duly remind us,
394
does not de facto refer to human firstborn, but also
392 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1-24, 411; Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 369; Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of
the Beloved Son, 5-8; Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1284; Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1-24,
636-637; Ronald M Hals, Ezekiel, Forms of the Old Testament Literature 19 (Grand Rapids, Mich:
Eerdmans, 1989), 141; Milgrom, Were the Firstborn Sacrificed?, 52-53; de Vaux, Studies in Old
Testament Sacrifice, 72; Finsterbusch, The First-Born between Sacrifice and Redemption in the
Hebrew Bible, 90-91; Lange, "They Burn Their Sons and Daughters -- That was No Command of
Mine" (Jer 7.31), 116-117; Stavrakopoulou, King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice, 184-189.
393 A few examples are 6;?, to burn (Deut 12:31; Jer 7:31, 19:5-6); 2=3, to give (Lev 18:21; 20:2-4);
*$), to sacrifice (Ezek 16:20).
394 Hahn and Bergsma, What laws were "not good"?, 211-212.
160
encompasses animal firstborn. As noted above, Exod 13:12 commands the sacrifice of
every opener of the womb, since the firstborn is intrinsically holy to Yahweh. But Exod
13:13 goes on to distinguish every human firstborn ( 0&# ;(.$ /.) from the general
designation of animal firstborn, stating that the firstborn among humans must be
redeemed rather than sacrificed ('&7).
395
In addition, Exod 13:2 juxtaposes ;(.$ with /.
0*; ;+7, stating: #(' ,/ '1'$$( 0&#$ /#;?, ,3$$ 0*; /. ;+7 ;(.$ /. ,/ >&:,
Consecrate to me [Yahweh] every firstborn. The opener of every womb among the sons
of Israel, among humans and among animals it is mine. Here too the firstborn of
humans is distinguished terminologically from that of animals.
This distinction appears also in Exod 13:15, which states that every firstborn in
the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of humans to the firstborn of animals ( 0&# ;.$1
'1'$ ;(.$ &5(), was killed by Yahweh during Egypt's tenth plague. Exod 13:16 goes on
to decree that, therefore, every firstborn male shall be sacrificed to Yahweh, but every
firstborn human son shall be redeemed. Yet he is still innately consecrated to Yahweh
simply as the firstborn. Bearing in mind the terminological precedent for specifying
human firstborn as distinct from animal firstborn, Hahn and Bergsma convincingly argue
that Ezek 20:26 does not by necessity refer to human firstborn sacrifice, but instead could
refer to that of animals.
396

In light of this, the question becomes: if Ezekiel refers to the Israelites' being
defiled by their divinely-ordered gifts of the firstborn ( 0*; ;+7 /.) with no
395 While sometimes ambiguous, the intent appears to be the male firstborn. On this ambiguity, however,
and for the argument that in some texts the sense is gender neutral, see Finsterbusch, The First-Born
between Sacrifice and Redemption in the Hebrew Bible.
396 Hahn and Bergsma, "What laws were 'not good'?", 211-212.
161
terminological specification that human firstborn are intended how are we to
understand their defilement? After all, the sacrificial offering of animal firstborn is not a
defiling act, but just the opposite. Hahn and Bergsma theorize that the problem lies in the
manner of firstborn sacrifice in the Deuteronomic legislation.
According to Lev 27:26, the firstborn belongs innately to Yahweh; it is
consecrated to him by its very nature. Such animals are to be dedicated to Yahweh if a
clean animal, it is to be sacrificed, and if an unclean animal not fit for sacrifice, it is to be
redeemed. Further, Lev 27:9-10, 28 state that dedicated clean animals may not be
substituted or redeemed; while the word firstborn does not appear in these verses
explicitly, Lev 27:26 is quite explicit that the firstborn are inherently already dedicated to
Yahweh. The fact that the firstborn of clean animals may not be substituted, but must be
sacrificed themselves, is supported by Numbers 18:17. This text states that the firstborn
of clean domestic animals cows, sheep, and goats shall not be redeemed by the offerer
( '&7= #/), for they are holy ( 0' >&:). Their blood may only be dashed upon the altar.
With regard to this, Baruch Levine comments, Firstlings of animals fit for
sacrifice....could not be redeemed because they were sacred by the fact of their birth. God
had prior claim on them.
397
Deuteronomy 14:22-26, however, states specifically that if
an Israelite lives too far from the chosen place, that person may bring money instead to
God's sanctuary, where we read in v. 26 that he or she may there spend the money on
anything your heart desires ( ->73 '(#= ;># /.$). That person can then consume at
the sanctuary whatever it is that he or she has bought as a substitute sacrifice for the
firstlings.
397 Levine, Numbers 1-20, 448.
162
With respect to this stark dissimilarity between Priestly and Deuteronomic law on
a matter of such great importance, Hahn and Bergsma observe, From the Priestly
perspective of Lev 27, however, such transactions are just not possible. The firstborn
belongs innately to the LORD, and one cannot simply transfer the animal's status to a
different animal via an economic transaction....[F]rom a strict Priestly perspective the
whole offering would be a charade.
398
Hahn and Bergsma go on to note that even if the
animals purchased as substitutes also had consecrated status, their sacrifice did not
fulfill the worshipers' obligation, since the original consecrated animals (i.e., the
firstlings) still owed to the LORD remained unsacrificed back at the worshipers'
homes. Furthermore, substitution and redemption applied only to unclean animals (Lev
27:11-27).
399

Moreover, Deut 14:26 contains yet another divergence from Priestly sacrificial
laws, since in this verse we read that the worshipers may eat, together with their
household, their purchased and substituted sacrificial animal. In the Priestly law of
firstlings, the unburned flesh of the sacrifice must go entirely to the priests (Num
18:18).
400
If the theory of Hahn and Bergsma is correct, then Ezekiel 20:25-26 might refer
not to child sacrifice, but rather to a law of firstborn animal sacrifice that was in Ezekiel's
eyes worse than deficient it was defiling, a law by which the Israelites could not live.
This law, in turn, was situated in the midst of a body of Deuteronomic cultic law that
398 Hahn and Bergsma, What laws were "not good"?, 215.
399 Ibid.
400 Levine, Numbers 1-20, 448; also Finsterbusch, The First-Born between Sacrifice and Redemption in
the Hebrew Bible, 99-101.
163
Ezekiel would have found not only woefully inadequate but detrimental to the well-being
of the people in the land. Ezekiel recognizes these laws as divinely-given, but only as
Yahweh's deliberate response to the Israelites' alleged inability to follow good divine
laws that were life-giving. For Ezekiel and his rhetorical goals, it was ironically only
these not good laws the second round of laws given to the second generation after its
rebellion that the Israelites could manage to follow.
Such a presentation would not be too far to go for Ezekiel, since it was not his
overarching goal to honor all traditions, even traditions many Israelites assumed were too
hallowed either by time or conviction to be faulty.
In the words of Ellen Davis:
He uses historical narrative to lead his audience out to the margins, where they may be
instructed in his perspective. Whoever wishes to understand him must move out to the
place where he has taken his stand, the place from which the familiar world can be
viewed with alien eyes, its patterns discerned, its values criticized. There on the
margins the prophet begins to form a new community which is all the more cohesive
because of the strength of the majority against which it is defined.
401
Beginning All Over Again: The Activity of Yahweh's Glory in Babylonia.
I have contended that Ezekiel's understanding of how the earthly divine presence
operates does not comport with the Deuteronomistic understanding, which upholds
different parameters for the divine activity on Earth. I have also contended that Ezekiel's
presentation of the Glory of Yahweh in Babylonia is the vehicle through which he recalls
a link to the distant past as expressed in Priestly tradition: the Glory abides with the
people now, outside Israel and without a physical sanctuary, and the Glory abode with
them outside Israel in the Sinai, when there was also no physical sanctuary.
401 Davis, Swallowing the Scroll, 118.
164
Certainly Ezekiel does not portray the Glory as visibly present in a constant way
in Babylonia; its visual appearances are intermittent and tailored to the delivery of
specific communications, and Ezekiel does not give us any indication as to whether the
Glory he saw would ever be visible to others. He does not address this matter in a
concrete way; yet he states quite clearly that God's presence with the exiles in Babylonia
is unequivocal (Ezek 11:15-16).
402
Here it is useful to recall that in the Priestly text of the
Pentateuch, the Glory was also not visibly present in a constant way before the
Tabernacle's construction, but rather made its presence known when needed, in response
to specific circumstances.
403
Yet the reassurance of the Glory's abiding with the people at
that time does not seem to have been in question for the text.
It should be remembered, as well, that while I argue Ezekiel draws upon a
homology between his current situation and that of the pre-Tabernacle wandering
Israelites, no two circumstances are ever exactly the same. In the tradition of Israelite
history, the Sinai wanderings were the setting in which the people journeyed in a foreign
land from slavery toward a homeland in which they had not yet lived. In Ezekiel's setting,
the people sit in a foreign land as a result of their iniquity (according to Ezekiel), and
their return to their homeland remains in the indistinct future. The two situations are not
identical, and the Glory's activity in each case is not identical; but the situations are
homologous, as is, in my view, the Glory's responsive activity.
When God's Glory appears to Ezekiel at the Chebar Canal in Babylonia, the
Jerusalem Temple still stood, in the literary progression of his book. This fact is
402The question of the ambiguous manner of God's abiding presence with the exiles is noted in fn 287.
403See also fn 10.
165
significant. As we investigated in Chapter Two, Deuteronomistic theology is explicit that
the locus of the Temple is God's only earthly dwelling-place. Ezekiel, however, shows
himself at pains in his first chapter to portray a scene wherein the Glory sweeps into a
foreign land during a time when the Temple still stood, albeit many miles removed and
unavailable to the exiles. Equally shocking, as we discussed earlier in this chapter, God
reveals in Ezek 11:16 that the Jerusalemites' conclusions about the exiles' distance from
him, and their supposed lack of a claim to him, are invalid. The Jerusalemites formed
their allegation because of the exiles' distance from Yahweh's chosen land. In response,
Ezekiel states that Yahweh has himself become a sanctuary in some measure for the
people outside the land; and with Yahweh as the sanctuary, the people are neither far from
his presence nor forced to relinquish claim to him. His sanctuary has moved to them.
Ezekiel also makes it clear to his audience that he already has been able to
experience God outside the land in the most direct of ways, despite the absence of the
Temple. With regard to the uniquely explicit and detailed nature of Ezekiel's vision of
God in Babylonia, Ellen Davis remarks that this would have been necessary coming from
a prophet in his location, because Ezekiel's revelatory experience occurred in a situation
in which such a thing was not thought to be possible: in exile, outside the land of
Israel.
404
Though the list of curses for the persistent violation of God's law in Deuteronomy
28 is quite lengthy, there is no curse involving the removal of the divine presence from
God's chosen place and its consequent destruction. The curses never imply that Yahweh's
chosen place itself would ever be destroyed as a consequence of the people's iniquity.
404 Davis, Swallowing the Scroll, 209.
166
There is no indication of a threat that God's presence would ever vacate the chosen place;
indeed, the only ones doing the vacating are the people themselves. In the words of Ellen
Davis, Ezekiel's prophecy is designed to serve an explanatory function, to explain a state
of affairs which is, in terms of the regnant theological system, quite literally
unthinkable.
405
Yet in his doing so, Ezekiel does not need to resort to proposing a new
theology out of whole cloth, though the creativity and boldness of his mind stand beyond
question. The conditions in which Ezekiel and the exiles as a whole (as suggested in Ezek
11:16) experience Yahweh outside the land recall the conditions of the first Exodus
generation before the existence of the Tabernacle.
Ezekiel's perception of his current conditions is framed by the experience of exile
and the accompanying need to formulate answers that can find a place within the
traditions of Israel's national story. The parallels between Ezekiel's current conditions and
the pre-Tabernacle Exodus conditions are, of course, the product of theological
construction. In a situation such as the exiles experienced, revisiting the national
foundation myth held potent opportunities to find answers to and inspiration in their
current dislocation, as well as opportunities to connect their dislocating experience with
something within the national story that was arguably equally significant to them.
406

As noted above, the Temple still exists in the literary setting of Ezekiel 1, when
405 Ibid., 110.
406Ezekiel, of course, was not the only one to do so. Second Isaiah, for example, also from a position of
exile, makes heavy use of the Exodus myth in his articulation of the people's exilic experience and their
ultimate deliverance from exile. To be sure, Ezekiel's use of the myth has also a negative side, which
finds expression in Ezekiel 20, with the prophet's belief that the Israelites' iniquity was unparalleled
even during the infancy of their nationhood. But for Ezekiel, the exiles had no better record than the
Israelites during the Exodus did, as far as iniquity was concerned; he offers no hint that the exiles
somehow constitute a righteous population. For Ezekiel, the Glory can still be active for the exilic
community, just as, for the larger Priestly tradition, it was active for the Exodus community.
167
the Glory initially appears outside the land; but because of the Temple's extensive
defilement, in Ezekiel's view it was defunct even to the people remaining in Jerusalem,
and it was certainly defunct for the exiles. Eventually, the Temple met its end physically
in a way that followed upon and matched what Ezekiel already saw as its cultic
bankruptcy. Bearing this in mind, we consider that Thomas Renz has eloquently
illustrated that Ezekiel conceives of Israel as a whole entity, in the sense that they are
the covenant people not demarcated by Northern or Southern geography. Renz notes that
where Ezekiel intends to refer specifically to the Northern Kingdom, he uses Ephraim,
Samaria, Oholah, or Joseph to accomplish this goal.
407
The term House of Israel
( /#;?, =,$) refers at times to Judah (since Judah is the only currently extant nation of
the covenant people), but also to the exiles as representative of the people as a whole
(e.g., Ezekiel 3-4). Fundamentally, Ezekiel sees the House of Israel as a whole.
408
We
need think only of Ezekiel 37 as the most prominent example of this fact.
This Ezekielian characteristic becomes even more significant when one considers
the parallel of the Glory's activity in Babylonia to the Glory's activity during the pre-
Tabernacle beginning of the wilderness wanderings. For Ezekiel, there is no question of
the Glory choosing to appear to some specific group of Israelites as a reward for their
diligent observance of God's law; quite the contrary, given the prophet's sweeping
indictment of the entire people. Renz states: It is not so much individuals who are called
to form a new (religious) community, but 'Israel.' The whole nation is confronted with its
past and with Yahweh's design for a new Israel....The new creation of Israel is not
407 Thomas Renz, The Rhetorical Function of the Book of Ezekiel, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 76
(Leiden: Brill, 1999), 219.
408Ibid. Similarly Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 564.
168
described primarily as the survival of a remnant, but as the resurrection of a people.
409
As the exiles exist in Babylonia, to be brought back into the Promised Land as a
community in the future, they parallel the Exodus experience. To notice this is not a new
thing. However, the people in exile represent most vitally the Israel before the existence
even of the Tabernacle, to say nothing of a temple. Within a Priestly schema, they exist as
the Israel before there was any available sanctified structure to house God's Glory. In
Ezekiel, the unenclosed presence of the Glory serves as a link recalling Israel's
beginnings as a nation. In this way, Ezekiel also participates in a re-creation of Sinai, in
which the prophet eventually receives a new order for a re-created community, along with
instructions for a new sanctuary in the idealized land. In this re-creation, it is important to
remember that the initiative is with Yahweh. Ezekiel does not expect Israel to be able to
make a new start on her own, to which Yahweh would then positively respond. Yahweh is
not waiting for Israel's response, he is creating it.
410
For Ezekiel, all of this is Yahweh's
sovereign action.
In this Ezekielian schema, Deuteronomistic Name theology, with its
understanding of the divine presence on Earth demarcated within a chosen place, does not
appear to factor. Instead, Ezekiel intends to reveal that in his own time, Yahweh's Glory is
free to revisit a divine activity that, according to tradition, Israel had experienced once
before without a sanctuary. Yahweh's Glory participates in what is not only a new
beginning, but what is in effect beginning all over again.
409 Renz, The Rhetorical Function of the Book of Ezekiel, 219, 221.
410 Ibid., 113.
169
Chapter Five
Concluding Reflections on the Glory of Yahweh in Ezekiel
It has been the purpose of this study to advance the idea that Ezekiel's portrait of
Yahweh's Glory represents an understanding of Yahweh's earthly presence that is quite
different from how the earthly divine presence is understood in Deuteronomistic Name
theology. I have also asserted that as part of his presentation, Ezekiel depicts the Glory in
a role similar to the one it had occupied immediately following the Exodus, according to
his Priestly tradition, when there was no physical sanctuary available to the people.
In Chapter Two, I examined the intent and extent of the centralizing ideology in
Deuteronomistic theology, looking particularly at the manner in which Name theology
expresses the Deuteronomistic goal of centralized worship. I also discussed how Name
theology answers the question of how Yahweh chooses to dwell on Earth, concluding that
Deuteronomistic thought prescribes that the divine presence be located only at the place
Yahweh will choose not divorced from the Temple and relegated only to Heaven.
Deuteronomistic thought understands the divine name on the Temple as a mark of
ownership for the place of Yahweh's presence, not a reduction of the Temple to symbolic
or abstract status only.
In Chapter Three, I considered the ways that the Priestly and non-Priestly texts of
the Hebrew Bible imagine Yahweh's Glory in terms of the spaces the Glory inhabits on
Earth, including to what extent such spaces are sanctified and mediated. These
170
considerations enabled us to view Ezekiel's presentation of the Glory against the
background of other biblical presentations of the Glory. In the process, I examined the
question of cult centralization and the Tabernacle in the Priestly texts, and discussed the
manner of the Glory's dwelling in the Tabernacle and the attendant question of Yahweh's
enthronement, concluding there is not sufficient reason to maintain that Priestly
writings conceive of the Glory as unenthroned. With the inauguration of the Tabernacle
and priesthood at Sinai in the Priestly narrative, the Glory took up residence within the
sanctified precincts, and centralization of sacrifice was initiated. From that point on,
Priestly texts do not record the Glory outside the Tabernacle, nor do they demonstrate the
Glory's relationship to other nations and lands. By contrast, we saw that non-Priestly texts
tend to speak only rarely of the Glory in the Temple (Ps 26:8, 29:9, and Jer 14:21); more
often, they speak of the Glory as filling the Earth, residing over the Earth and
encompassing the heavens, and as something before which other nations will stand in
reverence. This does not indicate a non-Priestly belief that the Glory does not reside in
the Temple; rather, it indicates that non-Priestly texts give voice to an Israelite tradition
that imagines the Glory with more flexibility and in a broader range of places.
In Chapter Four, we set out to discover the significance and the purpose of
Ezekiel's particular portrayal of the Glory of Yahweh. As part of this process, I analyzed
God's declaration in Ezek 11:16 that he would be a sanctuary in some measure to the
exiled people; Ezekiel's description of the Glory itself and any significance pertaining to
that description, including Ezekiel's view of Yahweh's enthronement; Ezekiel's possible
polemics against other Deuteronomistic perspectives; and the overarching meaning that
171
the prophet expresses through the vehicle of the Glory. Ezekiel depicts the Glory in a way
that understands Yahweh's earthly presence to operate quite differently from how it
operates in Deuteronomistic theology. Further, within the Priestly schema, Ezekiel
reveals the Glory as the catalyst for a link to the early Exodus when not even a
Tabernacle existed. This places Israel on the path to its new beginning.
Ezekiel's theology of Yahweh's Glory is intended as God's responsive action to a
new reality that was physically, emotionally, and spiritually dislocating. To be sure, it was
a new reality which, according to Ezekiel, God himself brought about but not one in
which God would leave the people to flounder alone. In this revelation of God's action,
Ezekiel also forges a connection to Israel's foundation myth as understood by his Priestly
tradition. It is a connection to the only other experience in Israel's national story that,
from the perspective of exile, bore the most similarity to its current experience. During
the Exodus wanderings before the Tabernacle was constructed in the Priestly story, the
Israelites also wandered in an unfamiliar land, without a true home yet bound to make
their way to one, without a physical sanctuary to represent God's presence among them in
a tangible way and to provide an appropriate place for their sacrifices.
411
In Ezekiel's
Priestly tradition, this brief Exodus period was the only one in which the Glory appeared,
albeit intermittently, without sanctuary precincts. To Ezekiel's shock, that Glory then
revealed itself to him with overwhelming force; in response, he could only fall to the
ground (Ezekiel 1). Equally shocking must have been God's subsequent declaration that
411Perhaps significantly, the source of Moses' repetitive request that Pharaoh release the Hebrews so they
might worship Yahweh in the wilderness and make sacrifices to him there is traditionally considered the
J source. See Ex 5:1; 7:16; 8:1, 20, 27; 9:1, 13; 10:3. In the P account, Moses requests simply that
Pharaoh let the people go.
172
the exiles are not far from him at all, nor have they forfeited their rights to him --
contrary to the allegations of those in Jerusalem -- and that he is for them a different kind
of sanctuary unto himself (Ezek 11:15-16).
Both situations, the Exodus and the Exile, also found the people in the aftermath
of pivotal experience. Immediately preceding the Exodus, national consciousness
remembered slavery -- a loss of freedom, self-determination, and morale. With the advent
of the Exile, the people experienced brutal national defeat at the hands of a foreign power
that destroyed the central city and the national Temple, carried away the king, and
deported a portion of the populace. These were brought to a land where the victims of the
earlier, smaller exile of 597 BCE had already been deported, and had already begun the
task of making sense of their new life. From his perspective of forced dislocation, Ezekiel
seeks to convey the idea that God's Glory could act without the benefit of sanctified space
during the Exile, just as it could during the Exodus, according to tradition. The Glory
would do this in order to meet the exigencies of a new and impermanent circumstance,
and thus to be present with the people in some sense until a full and ideal sanctuary could
be realized.
Moreover, it is not the case that Ezekiel's prophecy contains no elements of overt
divine love, compassion, or solicitousness, as is sometimes alleged.
412
Much of what
Ezekiel reveals is indeed a furious God, aflame with passionate anger for injustices and
transgressions rampantly committed. Much of what Ezekiel writes concerning this
passionate God causes readers discomfort, and that was undoubtedly his intention.
413
In
412See, e.g., Baruch J. Schwartz, Ezekiel's Dim View of Israel's Restoration, in The Book of Ezekiel:
Theological and Anthropological Perspectives (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), 43-67.
413For welcome and thought-provoking consideration of such elements of Ezekiel, see the Reflections
173
Ezek 36:22, 32, the prophet states in no uncertain terms that God chooses to restore Israel
not for its people's sake, but for the sake of his holy Name his reputation which has
been profaned among the nations. The theological dimensions of these elements in
Ezekiel deserve consideration, but in the process it cannot be stated that Ezekiel portrays
a God thoroughly removed from, or uninterested in, expressions of compassionate
presence. It is true that Ezekiel's heaviest focus is divine ferocity in response to persistent
human treachery and iniquity, but some of the most elegant divine-shepherd imagery in
the Hebrew Bible resides in Ezekiel 34. Consideration of this imagery in tandem with the
statements in Ezek 36:22, 32 lead us to believe that for Ezekiel, divine concern for the
powerless among the people those who suffered injustice and bloodshed under the
corruption of the leaders charged with looking after their welfare was not incompatible
with God's zealous action on behalf of his holy Name.
In Ezekiel 34, we find Yahweh first indicting the human shepherds of his flock for
letting them wander lost and fall prey to beasts, while the shepherds carelessly and
cruelly exploited the flock and indulged themselves on the sheep's production. Thus
Yahweh himself will seek out the lost and return them, will bandage the wounded and
strengthen the weak (34:1-16). Yahweh then states that he will judge among the sheep
within the flock. He upbraids the rams and the bucks of the flock, those who are strong
but who are not satisfied with their own share, who plunder the weak and destroy even
what they do not use, leaving for the rest of the flock only what they have trampled under
their feet (34:17-22). Yahweh then concludes that he will appoint a single shepherd over
sections at the conclusion of each such segment throughout Katheryn Darr, The Book of Ezekiel,
1073-1607; see also idem, Ezekiel's Justifications of God: Teaching Troubling Texts, Journal for the
Study of the Old Testament, no. 55 (1992): 97-117.
174
his flock -- my servant David -- who shall lead them. Yahweh will make for them a
covenant of peaceful well-being ( 0(/> =,;$, v. 25),
414
send down rains that bring
blessing and cause the trees to bear fruit, make the flock to dwell securely among what
were once dangerous environs, and break their yoke of slavery (34:23-29). In all this,
they shall know that I, Yahweh their God, am with them, and they are my people, the
House of Israel declares Lord Yahweh. For you, my flock, the flock that I shepherd, are
human, and I am your God declares Lord Yahweh (34:30-31).
Moshe Greenberg, noting that the leaders of the people, those who should have
guided and watched over their charges, are deemed the ones primarily responsible for the
people's misfortunes, comments: The new note struck here is the portrayal of the people
as innocent victims of bad government a compassionate, forgiving note....
415
Noting
also the similarity to Jeremiah's imagery of delinquent shepherds leaving their flock to
fall prey to predatory foreign rulers, then to be rescued by Yahweh himself, Greenberg
observes however that it was left to Ezekiel to combine the two themes delinquent
shepherds and predatory rulers into the image of predatory shepherds feeding on their
own flock....Perhaps the tender note audible in this oracle owes something to the
414Daniel Block notes that the formulation / =;., to cut for, rather than =# =;., to cut with,
indicates the treaty oath is freely promised and unilateral....However, the most striking modification of
the covenant blessings is found in the unconditional nature of his prophecy....Ezekiel drops all hints of
contingency, citing no qualifications or human preconditions and making no appeal for repentance. In
fact, the picture of Israel's restoration is painted entirely from the divine perspective. Block, The Book
of Ezekiel, Chapters 25-48, 303. Darr also remarks upon the unexpectedly unconditional nature of this
covenant, noting that it cannot adequately be explained simply as a renewing of the conditional Sinai
covenant. In vv. 25-30, Ezekiel nowhere says that Yahweh's covenant of peace depends upon the
people's obedience to a set of stipulations....[T]his covenant is presented as something new." Darr, The
Book of Ezekiel, 1472.
415Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible
22A (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 698. Indeed, Darr, employing the reader-response method, remarks
that readers must have been surely struck by this account, since Ezekiel most often indicts the entire
House of Israel. Here, by contrast, all of God's scattered people appear as helpless victims of their
rulers' neglect and abuse. Darr, The Book of Ezekiel, 1464.
175
influence of Jeremiah, too.
416
Jeremianic influence or no, the tender note is present,
and ought to be recognized.
Moreover, God, who here judges the leaders of the flock for thoughtless brutality
and negligence in their abuse of power, also judges some of the stronger members of the
flock itself for similar brutality. I think here of Ezek 7:23, one of the passages in which
Ezekiel identifies reasons for the calamity that has befallen the Israelites. In Ezek 7:23,
we read that the land is full of bloodshed (0,1&) and the city is full of violence (41*).
Violence and bloodshed are named as filling the land and the city of Jerusalem; these
crimes of cruelty against fellow humankind stand among the primary reasons given for
God's wrath and the defeat of the nation. It is very likely indeed that the strong members
of the flock whom God indicts in Ezekiel 34 are the same perpetrators of violence and
treachery named in Ezekiel 7.
According to Ezek 33:21, a fugitive came from Jerusalem and said, The city is
fallen. Ezekiel states that the word of Yahweh came to him in response to the protests of
those within Israel, who said that since Abraham was one and they are many, the land is
assuredly their inheritance. In Yahweh's response we hear again the reasons for his wrath:
Therefore say to them, Thus says Lord Yahweh: with the blood, you eat, and your eyes
you raise to your fetishes, and blood you shed but the land you shall inherit? You have
relied upon your sword ( - 0.$;* /5 0=&15), you have committed abomination, and
each man his neighbor's wife you have defiled; but the land you shall inherit? (Ezek
33:25-26). According to Ezekiel's prophecy, the land of the Israelites' inheritance is not
an unquestioned birthright to be wielded as a kind of insurance policy for any amount of
416Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37, 709.
176
wrongdoing and corruption; it is, rather, a divine gift ultimately under the control of God.
Yet also according to Ezekiel's prophecy, God, who allowed the defeat of the land
and the expulsion of a portion of its populace in response to a litany of transgressions,
then travels with them outside the land, and makes a sanctuary of himself among them. It
is the same God who promises to reunite the divided House of Israel (Ezekiel 37), and to
restore the Israelites to their inheritance; to rescue his flock from negligent and exploitive
shepherds in order to shepherd them himself; to sprinkle them with pure water and thus
cleanse them from their iniquities (Ezek 36:25); to replace their heart of stone with a
heart of flesh (Ezek 36:26); and to place his own spirit within them so that they may
follow in his ways and flourish once more (Ezek 36:27ff). It is this same God whose
Glory shall dwell again in the ideal restored Temple of a future age in a city called
Yahweh is there ( '1> '(',), whose sanctuary (>&:1) will be among them eternally
(Ezek 37:26, 28), and whose Tabernacle presence (2.>1) will be over them eternally
(Ezek 37:27).
177
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