May 6 ▪ Day 126

Scripture Readings

Proverbs 17:1
Ezekiel 1–2
Acts 23
Psalms 126

Verse Focus (Proverbs 17:1)

Better a dry crust with peace and quiet
     than a house full of feasting, with strife.

Meditation

Today’s verse focus is similar to one we looked at on April 14th (Day 104). Proverbs 17:1 says, “Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife.” The proverb we looked at earlier was Proverbs 15:17, which says, “Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred.” Both proverbs contrast material wealth against spiritual health. Without the values that make life worthwhile, the riches of the world are not worth having.

Today’s proverb, however, looks specifically at strife and its opposite — peace, quiet, harmony. The Hebrew word here, shalvah, means quietness, ease, prosperity, and tranquility. If you have shalvah, a meager meal is more than enough. Indeed, who wants a feast if it comes with discord and dissension? Only someone who is starving would take that bargain.

I remember when I was younger. I would hear older people talk about desiring peace and quiet, and I would rail against what I perceived as a boring life. Don’t you want to be with people? Don’t you want to have fun? Let’s have a party! Let’s celebrate!! Perhaps I just hadn’t enough exposure to the strains and stresses of the world.

Now, however, I perfectly understand that desire for peace and quiet. And even though I live alone, I still long for tranquility. Shalvah is more than lack of noise. It’s more than lack of conflict with your family or housemates. It’s about resting in the security of our Savior. Even when my apartment is quiet, I can feel stressed by financial considerations or worn by lack of progress or worried by unmet expectations. Having quiet makes it easier to let go of those burdens and to cast those cares upon God. And in Jesus, then I can be tranquil — at peace. If the price for that peace is a more modest lifestyle, so be it. It’s more than worth it.

Father God, thank you that we can be quiet and rest in your Presence. Thank you for giving us peace and tranquility. May we turn to you whenever our cares cause us to worry. Thank you that you are completely trustworthy. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Today we begin reading Ezekiel, another one of the major prophets in the Bible. Ezekiel prophesied for about 22 years as an exile in the land of Babylon. He was born in Judea around the time that King Josiah began his religious reforms, the son of a priest of Jerusalem named Buzi. (According to some rabbinical traditions, Ezekiel is actually the son of the prophet Jeremiah. “Buzi” was seen as a derogatory name for Jeremiah, coming from the Hebrew buz, meaning contempt, despised, or a laughingstock.) In 597 BC when King Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) was removed from the throne, he and a number of his court were sent to Babylon — and Ezekiel was among those who were exiled. The first vision recorded in chapter 1 occurred five years after this exile, in about 592 BC, when Ezekiel was 30 years old. Israel still exists as a nation, but in six years Jerusalem will fall.

Ezekiel chapter 1 records the vision Ezekiel had of the glory of the LORD by the Kebar River (or canal) in Babylon, in what is now the country of Iraq. Although he gives a detailed description of what he saw, the things he describes don’t make full sense to us. Perhaps this is because we don’t have the same frame of reference that Ezekiel had. Or perhaps Ezekiel is using symbolic images to describe something from a dimension that doesn’t really translate well into our reality.

I am left with a very impressionistic sense of Ezekiel’s vision. Thunderclouds and brilliant light. Flashing fire. Four living creatures (cherubim), each with four faces, and four wings. There are hands underneath the wings. They sparkle and gleam. They glow like embers. Somehow they move in any direction they want to go, yet without turning — they go “straight forward.” And there are intersecting wheels below these creatures, with rims full of eyes.

There is an expanse like crystal above these creatures. In verse 24, Ezekiel describes the “sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the sound of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army.” This poetry and symbolism somehow manages to convey the power and immensity and majesty of what Ezekiel heard.

Ezekiel then hears a voice, and he sees a throne in the expanse above. On the throne a figure like a man, but glowing and gleaming like metal, surrounded by rainbow brilliance. As Ezekiel sees this glory of the LORD, he falls facedown.

In chapter 2, we read of Ezekiel’s call from God. The LORD addresses Ezekiel as “Son of man.” This is somewhat shocking since this is Jesus’ favorite description of himself. Son of man. Son of humankind. Human. Mortal. Fragile.

God helps Ezekiel to stand. He tells Ezekiel that he is sending him to “the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation (v. 3).” God tells Ezekiel not to be afraid, even “though briers and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions (v. 6).” He gives Ezekiel a scroll filled with “words of lamentation and mourning and woe (v. 10).” I was especially struck by God’s comment in verse 5 that whether the Israelites “hear or refuse to hear… they will know that a prophet has been among them.”

Okay, wow. This is much like Isaiah’s vision of God and the seraphim in Isaiah 6, with his subsequent call to ministry. Overwhelming.

I have read interpretations of Ezekiel’s visions. There are many different symbolic meanings you can take from the four faces of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. But today I don’t want to dig into possible symbolism. I just want to sit with the impression I have. The brilliance. The mightiness. The majesty. And, yes, some of the bizarre. It gives me a small experiential sense of God’s glory. So I just need to meditate on this further. The only insight I can offer is: Wow.

I do want to point out, however, the significance of Ezekiel being 30 years old when he received this vision. Although one became a priest by one’s birth among the sons of Aaron, a priest would not serve in the Tabernacle or temple until he became 30 years of age (Numbers 4:2-4). Levites, who were to assist the priests, could serve from 25 years of age (Numbers 8:24-26; later lowered to 20 years of age by David in 1 Chronicles 23:27). But performing the duties of a priest on behalf of the people — a man would not enter service until 30 years of age. (This might shed some light on why Jesus did not begin his ministry until he was about 30 years old.)

But think about Ezekiel. He was taken into exile when he was 25 years old. Now he is of the age where he might have started serving in the temple — but he is in Babylon. There was no temple there, and no way for him to fulfill the priestly functions he would have been raised to anticipate. He may have felt lost, and purposeless. But God is merciful. And so Ezekiel was called and consecrated to a ministry of prophecy.

In Acts 23, Paul gives his defense before the Sanhedrin. His opening statement is that he has lived his life “before God in all good conscience (v. 1),” but this remark causes the high priest Ananias to direct those standing near him to strike Paul on the face. Paul responds with an extremely critical remark. As Paul says in verse 3, “Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” Paul is rebuked for speaking ill of the high priest, and Paul’s reaction is contrite — he says that he did not realize it was the high priest, and he quotes the law that says one should not speak ill of your rulers (Exodus 22:28).

Deuteronomy 25:1-2 speaks of the procedure for a dispute. The judges are to decide the case, “acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.” If the guilty person “deserves to be beaten,” the judge will ensure that happens. The purpose of Paul speaking to the council was to give his defense to their accusations of him profaning the temple. Yet by having Paul struck, the high priest Ananias was essentially declaring him guilty before there had even been a trial.

To me, this is worse even than his callous treatment of Paul. I assume Ananias had Paul struck because he believed that Paul was lying. He did not believe that Paul could have a clean conscience before God. Since Christ came, we have direct access to stand before God. But in the time before Christ’s revelation, the priest would have been your mediator. And I suppose Ananias felt that as the high priest he was the proper judge of whether or not someone stood righteous before God. But even if Ananias did hold this view of himself, I’m not sure that Jewish tradition gave him the authority to judge using his own wisdom — the standard should never be another person but the Scripture itself — God’s law. And according to God’s law, the judge should not decide until after the case has been presented.

When Paul mentioned that he was on trial for his hope in the resurrection, this caused a great divide between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I was struck by how the Pharisees started saying, in verse 9, “What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” They are not ready to believe that Jesus could be resurrected, but they are prepared to believe that Paul may have seen a spirit or a vision of an angel on the road to Damascus as he had described those events in the prior day’s testimony. Yet “the dissension became violent (v. 10),” and so the Roman tribune Claudius Lysias had Paul taken back to the barracks again.

It’s also rather amazing that over forty men conspired to kill Paul, vowing to not eat or drink until they had killed him. How on earth could they believe that what they were doing was right? You can understand one man being reckless and stupid, and you can understand things happening when a crowd comes together — but to coldly and deliberately plan an ambush — what were these men thinking? I understand they disagreed with Paul and thought that he was a troublemaker, but I fail to understand their belief that violence would solve things. I also don’t understand what they thought they were protecting. Faith? Religion? Jewish identity? And how could they believe that it was up to them to fix this? Where was God in their thinking? And if God was absent, why did they get the tacit approval of the Sanhedrin?

Fortunately, the tribune took the threat seriously, and he had Paul sent to the governor Felix in Caesarea. 200 soldiers, 70 horsemen, and 200 spearmen seems a little excessive in terms of protection against 40 men, but I guess the tribune wanted no criticisms of his defense of a Roman citizen. I was amused, however, that his letter to Felix described his own actions as “rescuing” Paul (v. 27).

Psalm 126 is a lovely pilgrimage song celebrating the restoration of the temple. When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion — such joy! Such thanksgiving. The second half of the short psalm is a meditation upon the reversal of fortune from the point of view of those still waiting. I love verses 5 and 6:

⁵Those who sow in tears
     shall reap with shouts of joy!
⁶He who goes out weeping,
     bearing the seed for sowing,
     shall come home with shouts of joy,
     bringing his sheaves with him.

This recalls Psalm 30:5b, a much-beloved verse: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

Father God, thank you for the promise of joy to come. You remember us and pour out your mercy upon us so that seasons of mourning change into seasons of joy. Thank you that even in dark trials, you are accomplishing your purpose. Paul stood on trial before his peers in Jerusalem, even though they had already made up their minds against him. But their stubbornness led to Paul’s message of salvation being spread across the known world. May we persevere when we face difficulties. Like Ezekiel, our future may seem barren and purposeless, but you still have a plan for each one of us that will result in praise for your kingdom. May we walk in your paths and do the things that you call us to do. In Jesus’ name and strength, Amen.