Even from a distance - we can feel the pain of our people’s suffering, and the heart can hurt can break apart. Can there be healing? Time helps to heal a broken heart, but can the very shattered heart of time heal also?
The exiled prophet closes his eyes and imagines that he’s back home. He sees the hills and mountain, valleys and plains of Judah as they come alive and it’s to them - the natural elements of the faraway homeland that he’ll never see again - that he now speaks aloud, a prophecy of doom. The mountains will still be there when the people are slain and the trees are burnt down. These are the last years of Judah, and Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon, can see the bitter end - and in this chapter he tells his fellow-fugitives just how bad it is going to get - and why.
The reason, as so often cited by the other prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah - is that the people forgot their bonds of justice and their loyalty to their God and their laws. All over Jerusalem and Judah the poor have been abandoned and the foreign gods and goddesses were worshiped instead of YHWH. And while Ezekiel is literally talking about idol-worship, he, just like the other prophets also speaks to the fact that the people’s value system and priorities were off the mark. To worship idols such as power, money, lust or war is to forget the inner core of the divine that unites us all and transcends the trivial. It is this loss of inner faith that Ezekiel now laments -- and so many mourn - back then -- right now.
It is literally heartbreaking. And not just the human hearts break because of the enormous tragedy - the very essence of what God is - breaks apart as well. In this next verse, mid litany that lets the people know the awful fate of Jerusalem -- Ezekiel speaks for YHWH, and says something that has puzzled many readers over the years - a grammatical use of a verb is open for radical readings -- who’s heart is breaking here?
וְזָכְר֨וּ פְלִיטֵיכֶ֜ם אוֹתִ֗י בַּגּוֹיִם֮ אֲשֶׁ֣ר נִשְׁבּוּ־שָׁם֒ אֲשֶׁ֨ר נִשְׁבַּ֜רְתִּי אֶת־לִבָּ֣ם הַזּוֹנֶ֗ה אֲשֶׁר־סָר֙ מֵֽעָלַ֔י וְאֵת֙ עֵֽינֵיהֶ֔ם הַזֹּנ֕וֹת אַחֲרֵ֖י גִּלּוּלֵיהֶ֑ם וְנָקֹ֙טּוּ֙ בִּפְנֵיהֶ֔ם אֶל־הָֽרָעוֹת֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשׂ֔וּ לְכֹ֖ל תּוֹעֲבֹתֵיהֶֽם׃
“And those who will manage to escape -- they will remember Me among the nations where they have been taken captive, how I was brokenhearted through their faithless hearts that turned away from Me, and through their eyes that lusted after their fetishes. And they shall loathe themselves for all the evil they committed and for all their abominable deeds.”
I deeply appreciate the layering of the translation problem--there's a deep poetry to this description of God not just as broken, but *brokenhearted* witnessing faithless hearts that turned from God. The idea that to be brokenhearted isn't simply a breaking of the body--it's a breaking of the spirit as well--resonates powerfully. And what would break God's own heart more than witnessing humanity do so much harm to one another and to living, breathing Earth around us. I wonder about God's heart in these times and pray that from the breaking of our own hearts alongside God's comes the energy of action and radical love so needed right now.
I love reading your commentary. Thank you so much.