The national and spiritual restoration envisioned by Ezekiel did not occur literally with the postexilic community. The returned Jewish remant did not even attempt to implement Ezekiel’s detailed plan for a new temple (Ezekiel 40-48) when they constructed the second temple. Therefore, critical scholars argue that a literal fulfillment was never expected. Rather, they say Ezekiel’s “prophetic” language was hyperbolic or exaggerated speech, common to the apocalyptic genre whose imagery served to create an inspirational fiction. Christian scholars accepting these prophecies of Ezekiel as apocalyptic (or as symbolic) have traditionally read Ezekiel’s prophecy of restoration (in chapters 40-48) in light of John’s vision of the church in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21: 9- 22: 5), claiming that just as the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem is largely symbolic, so is the vision of the earthly Jerusalem given in these chapters. However, Ezekiel complained that a symbolic understanding of his prophecies was the problem of the unbelieving constituency of his audience: “Then I said, Ah, Lord God! They are saying of me, Is he not just speaking in parables?” (Ezekiel 20: 49). Ezekiel himself gives the reader every impression that expected a literal fulfillment of his prophecies.
Furthermore, such interpretation does violence to the literary symmetry of Ezekiel’s prophecies by making the description of ruin literal and historical, but the corresponding description of restoration figurative and spiritual. Such could scarcely have been the hope of the Jewish exiles in Babylon, as the prayer of Daniel (a contemporary exile with Ezekiel) for a literal restoration of Jerusalem and a rebuilding of the temple reveals (Dan. 9: 2-19). Daniel’s prayer, in turn, was based on his understanding of the prophecy of Jeremiah (another exile), whose statements of geography and chronology (Jer. 25: 11-12) had to be interpreted literally in order to be the ground of Israel’s hope and Daniel’s petition of restoration.
Both divisions of Ezekiel’s prophecy were visionary. Therefore, it is unwarranted to treat the first division as historical (since fulfillment occurred historically with the destruction of the first temple and the exile), and the second division as symbolic (since fulfillment did not occur historically under the return and building of the second temple). From the historical perspective of Ezekiel’s audience (as well as that of Jeremiah and Daniel), the whole of the book was certainly to be understood literally (historically) as corresponding promises of the nation’s punishment and pardon. Just as the first was realized in their day, so the second would also be realized in a future day.
Brian
This has some real problems:
1. The nation actually was restored, both nationally and spiritually, but with a priestly dominion over a larger territory. The empire was filled with synagogues, and we see the harvest of this ministry in the book of Acts. There are many Gentile believers.
2. Ezekiel’s Temple was a building of living stones. Daniel saw a vision of the new Gentile “Tabernacle” and Ezekiel saw a vision of the Temple. Prefiguring the New Covenant, it was a further step towards the flesh-and-blood Temple of Christ. The description makes it clear that the priests were still no longer allowed to drink the wine in the presence of God, so it is still Old Covenant limited access.
3. Both Ezekiel’s and John’s visions of New Jerusalems/Temples are symbolic. The Tabernacle itself was symbolic. Peter’s vision of the first century Jew-Gentile Tabernacle was symbolic. But all were fulfilled in flesh-and-blood, ie. people.
4. It’s not very hard to see that Ezekiel’s account of the destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple is highly symbolic, as is the restoration. The whole book follows the Egypt to Canaan pattern, with the “mighty men” Gentiles judged at the centre in the wilderness. As then, it would be the next generation “resurrected” from the dust (Ezekiel 37) to reconquer the Land (Ezekiel 38-39, fulfilled in the book of Esther) and rebuild God’s house in a greater way than ever before.
5. Revelation follows the structure of Ezekiel step by step. Again, it shows the deconstruction of the Temple, the judgment upon the “mighty men” of the day, and the reconquest of the Land. Only this time, it was truly a heavenly country. Following this “Jericho” victory, the church moves out to conquer the rest of the Land, ie. the world, until the final judgment.
Dr. Price has to tear Ezekiel and Revelation out of their historical contexts (and wreak havoc with their obvious literary structures) to push restoration into the future. He needs to read the book of Esther again a few times to understand what God’s plan was for Israel during that stage in history. India to Ethiopia was an expansion of the domain of God’s faithful.