Blue Cord

A few days ago, someone forwarded the following message to me with the picture to the right attached:

Cara Winship sent this out it is called: God’s hands.

I took this picture on Hwy 30, traveling to London City, KY. It has given me strength in the times of trouble. I feel I should share it with the rest of the world. I hope it is an inspiration to you. It just goes to show what we already know…. We have a God and he’s watching over us.

I e-mailed this picture to News Chanel [sic] 36. I was contacted by Meteorologist John James. He said that this picture of the sky is
showing up, in all states, around the world. He wanted to know where I was from and where I took it. He saw a similar picture taken in Texas He said this is amazing to him!

The picture is obviously faked, of course. It would be quite easy to do in Photoshop or GIMP. In fact, someone on the Urban Legends Reference Pages claims to have done it. And although hoaxes such as this usually don’t contain references to actual people’s names, the fact that there is no London City, KY, should be a clue as well.¹ But I didn’t want to focus on the picture or the hoax. Instead, I want to focus on the interpretation.

If one of us were to see such a vision in the clouds, we would be inclined to interpret it the way the forwarded e-mail does. Here are God’s hands reaching out to help us or comfort us.

But why should we immediately interpret it that way? Other interpretations are possible. Perhaps it is a sign that God is angry with us and is reaching down to punish us. The hands are here to crush us. It could be that the hands are holding a bowl of God’s wrath as in Revelation 16. When such a bowl is poured it, it certainly will not bring comfort.

I am not offering these interpretations because I am a pessimist. Instead, I am trying to follow the pattern set forth in the Bible. When prophets saw signs, they were just as likely — and perhaps more likely — to be signs of punishment than signs of promise. Think of Amos 7:7-9, where God showed Amos a plumb line. Amos could have looked at it an piously interpreted it as God’s building tool that indicated God was going to build something wonderful for Israel. Instead, it was a sign of judgment. Israel was found to be off-plumb, and therefore God was going to make Israel desolate.

Or take Jeremiah 1:13-19. When Jeremiah saw a boiling pot tipping over from the north, he could have interpreted it as a sign that God was providing food for his people. Surely a cooking pot has something to do with food! But God told him that the pot was a sign that God was going to bring an enemy against Judah from the north.

Certainly, there are signs of promise as well. I don’t mean to imply that those are not found in the Bible. But it seems to me that before we go interpreting something as a sign from God, we better take into account the fact that signs are just as likely to be negative. If we take everything as a sign of God’s love and comfort, all we are doing is stroking our spiritual egos.

1. There is a London, KY, but no London City. Highway 30 does run near London, and Lexington, KY, does have a Channel 36, although I could not find a John James on staff. This particular incarnation of this hoax appears to be tailored to a particular region. [back]

One the questions in the history of the priesthood is the reference of Ezekiel 44:10, which presents the Levites as going after idols when Israel went astray. On the basis of this sin, Ezekiel states that the Levites must be given a lower status in the cult and may no longer serve at the altar.

A number of scholars have seen this as a reference to Levites participating in the worship at high places prior to the reforms of Josiah. This doesn’t make much sense to me. After all, it was Deuteronomy that argued against worship at high places, and Deuteronomy seems to come from Levitical circles. Besides, Ezekiel does not seem to be particularly influenced by Deuteronomy, and I find it unlikely that he would have approved of Josiah’s reforms. After all, Josiah allowed Levites to be priests in Jerusalem, which would have meant Ezekiel’s priestly group would be forced to share the temple service with others.

Steve Cook did a great deal to further the discussion when he recognized that Ezekiel 44 is making explicit reference to the Levitical rebellion in Numbers 16-18.¹ It seems to me that Ezekiel is reading the situation in late preexilic Judah (c.620-586 BCE) through the lens of Numbers 16-18. The people of Judah are going astray, and the Levites — who have been granted leadership positions by Josiah — are participating in this idolatry. The Zadokites, on the other hand, did not participate in the idolatry (Ezek. 44:15). For more on my thoughts on the relationship between Numbers 16-18 and Ezekiel, see my post from last summer.

While Ezekiel creates the situation that we see in the postexilic period, with Zadokites serving at the altar and other Levites (both Aaronide and non-Aaronide?) serving as temple servants, what I am more interested in at this point is what the situation was before the exile. It seems to me that they had three groups: Levites that had come from the north, Aaronides who had always been in Judah, and Zadokites who are perhaps a subset of Aaronides. The question is, what were the Aaronides doing when Israel went astray?

It is interesting to note that already in Ezekiel the Zadokites are referred to as the “sons of Levi.” What I would like to know is whether Ezekiel was the first to apply this to the Zadokites. Would they have considered themselves Levites prior to the exile? The Levites as a priestly group seem to have very ancient origins, perhaps even going back to the pre-monarchic period. Would it have been necessary for the Zadokites to claim Levitical descendancy in order to be priests? At what point would this have been necessary?

I have to wonder whether the Zadokites came to ascendency because they were the main priestly group that was deported. Jehozadak was a priest taken into exile, and the formation of his name suggests a connection with Zadok. His son Joshua is the first high priest of the exilic period. If those exiled to Babylon were principally from Jerusalem and not the surrounding countryside, this would mean that it was the central priesthood that was exiled. Joshua 21 presents the Aaronides as living in the rest of Judah, and they may have made up only a small part of the priests in exile. The Levites, on the other hand, would have been serving in Jerusalem and some of them would have gone into exile as well. But it is instructive to note that the Chronicler’s history mentions a large amount of Zadokites returning from exile accompanied by a much smaller group of Levites.

If the Zadokites were the predominant group in exile, it is easy to see how they would have gained prominence over those left in Judah. Jeremiah had stated that the exiles in Babylon were the future of Israel, while those left in Judah were the bad fruit (Jer. 24). This could have led the Zadokites to see themselves as the future of the priesthood, especially with Ezekiel saying that they had remained faithful while the other priests had gone astray with Israel.

1. Stephen L. Cook, “Innerbiblical Interpretation in Ezekiel 44 and the History of Israelite Priesthood,” JBL 114 (1995), 193-208. [back]