This week the lectionary reads Ezekiel straight through — from today's catastrophe to the glory returning to the temple on Saturday. Chapter 24 opens with a date: the day the siege of Jerusalem began. Today is the sign-act that ends the first half of the book, and it is the most brutal thing any prophet was asked to do.
What happens
"Son of man, by a sudden blow I am taking away from you the delight of your eyes, but do not mourn or weep or shed any tears. Groan in silence, make no lament for the dead, bind on your turban, put your sandals on your feet, do not cover your beard, and do not eat the customary bread." I spoke to the people in the morning, and that evening my wife died; and the next morning I did as I had been commanded. The people ask what it means, and the answer comes: "I will now desecrate my sanctuary, the pride of your strength, the delight of your eyes, the desire of your soul… Then you shall do as I have done."
What to notice
Machmad einekha — "the delight of your eyes." The phrase appears twice, and that repetition is the entire sign: it is used first of Ezekiel's wife and then of the temple. What she is to him, the sanctuary is to them. The prohibition is the message, and it is worth being precise about why. Ezekiel is not told that mourning is wrong; he is told to omit the visible rites — the uncovered head, the bare feet, the covered lip, the bread brought by neighbours — because when the catastrophe comes it will be too large and too public for the ordinary machinery of grief. There will be no neighbours left to bring the bread. And the sentence that should stop any reader: "and the next morning I did as I had been commanded."No protest is recorded. Jeremiah would have argued; Job would have argued. Ezekiel reports the death of his wife in eleven words and gets up and goes to work. One more thing worth knowing: from this point he is struck dumb, and stays silent until a fugitive brings news that the city has fallen (Ezekiel 24:27; 33:22). He is not permitted to mourn and not permitted to speak.
Not a psalm at all, but the Song of Moses — the long poem Moses is told to teach Israel so it can be sung back to them as a witness when things go wrong (Deuteronomy 31:19). The lectionary uses it today and again tomorrow.
The selected verses
Deuteronomy 32:18–19."You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, you forgot the Theos who gave you birth. When Yahweh saw this, he was filled with loathing and anger toward his sons and daughters." Deuteronomy 32:20."'I will hide my face from them,' he said, 'and see what will then become of them. What a fickle race they are, sons with no loyalty in them!'" Deuteronomy 32:21."'Since they have provoked me with their "no-god"… I will provoke them with a "no-people"; with a foolish nation I will anger them.'"
What to notice
Deuteronomy 32:18 does something no other verse in the Torah does. Tzur yeladekha — the Rock that bore you — and then El mecholelekha, the Theos who writhed in labour with you.Chul is the verb for a woman's contractions. A rock is given a birth-verb, and Theos is given a mother's body, in a poem otherwise full of eagles and swords. Then the tit-for-tat in verse 21, exact down to the grammar: they provoked him with a lo-el, a not-god; he will provoke them with a lo-am, a not-people. Paul quotes this verse at Romans 10:19 to explain the Gentile mission — the "not-people" turns out to be a promise as well as a threat.
Matthew's Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. This week's Gospels run from here to the opening of the woes on Saturday, and today's encounter sets up the next two days — the camel and the needle tomorrow, the vineyard the day after.
What happens
"Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternallife?" Jesus answers, "Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." The man asks which; Jesus lists them — not to kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness; honour father and mother; and you shall love your neighbour as yourself."All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?" — "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.""When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions."
What to notice
The question is stranger than it looks. Ti eti hysterō — "what am I still short of?" — asked by a man who has just claimed a perfect record, and asked sincerely: he is not fishing for praise, he genuinely feels something missing, and he is right. Watch what Jesus does with the list. He recites the second table of the Decalogue — the commandments about other people — then adds a line that is not in the Decalogue at all (Leviticus 19:18). And he leaves one out. The commandment absent from the list is the tenth: you shall not covet.Ktēmata polla — many properties, suggesting holdings and land rather than a purse. And the last clause is one of the saddest in the gospels: apēlthen lypoumenos, he went away grieving. He is the only person in the gospels called directly who does not come.
Two men lose the delight of their eyes today, and the difference between them is everything.
Ezekiel is not consulted. The announcement comes in the morning, the death comes in the evening, and the following morning he does what he was told. He is not asked to be willing; he is asked to be visible — to walk around Tel Abib with his turban on and his sandals laced, so the exiles can look at a man not mourning and understand what is about to happen to their temple. The cruelty of the sign is the point of the sign.
The young man in Matthew is asked. Nothing is taken from him at all. He receives an invitation, phrased as an offer — if you wish to be perfect — and he is free to decline, and does. Matthew neither condemns him nor chases him; the text simply reports that he went away, and that he went away sad.
And the sadness is what makes the story permanently uncomfortable. He is not a hypocrite and he is not a fool. He kept the commandments, and Jesus does not dispute it. He knew something was missing, which is more self-knowledge than most people manage. He asked the right person. And when he heard the answer, he discovered that he had already been answered by his own holdings, years earlier, without ever making a decision about it.
Which is what Deuteronomy names in a single line. "You forgot the Rock that begot you."Forgetting is not a choice either. Nobody sets out to forget; it happens by attention going elsewhere for long enough, and the Song of Moses treats it as the fundamental failure — more basic than idolatry, since the idols come afterwards to fill the space. So the day arranges three ways of holding something. Ezekiel holds his wife and has her taken. The young man holds his fields and cannot put them down. Israel held the Rock and stopped noticing it was there. In only one of the three is the person given a say — and that is the one that ends in grief.
A Question to Sit With
He asked what he still lacked, which means he could feel it. That is the part I keep returning to — the man was not complacent, he was not lying about the commandments, and he had noticed the gap himself. What he could not do was hear the specific answer. I suspect I already know what my own version of the answer is, and that I have been careful for years not to ask the question in a form that would produce it. What is the one thing I would rather be told to do than the thing I suspect I would actually be told?