Va-Era (Exodus 6:2-9:35) Haftorah is Ezekiel 28:25-39:21
By Irv Jacobs, M.D.
LA JOLLA, California — These prophetic passages, partly poetic but mainly prose, come from the writings of the controversial prophet Ezekiel, known previously to us for hallucinatory flights of fancy. These are dated c. 587 BCE, months before the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem.
All of the prophets sensed that God spoke to them, i.e in modern terms, transgressed the borders of sanity. Ezekiel was an extreme case. He was a Jerusalem priest, part of an exiled elite deported to Babylonia in 597 BCE, 10 years ahead of Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem.
In terms of literary artistry, he doesn’t come close to Isaiah or Jeremiah. In fact, his works manifest little poetry, and his prose exhibits a weakness for redundancy. His power as a prophet stems from the hallucinatory vividness and ‘originality’ of his visions. [1]
The connection of this Haftorah to Va-Era of the Torah is that each presents a judgment against Egypt. In this Haftorah, the judgment is criticism of Judea’s failed alliance with Egypt in facing the new power from the east and north, Babylon. Score one. This is a true reality-point for psychiatrically compromised Ezekiel. [2]
I have chosen this Haftorah’s translation and interpretations by Emeritus Professor Dr. Robert Alter of the University of California Berkeley. [3]
Here are excerpts:
Thus said the Master, the LORD: “When I gather in the house of Israel from the peoples where they are scattered, I will be hallowed through them in the eyes of the nations, and they shall dwell on their soil that I gave to My servant Jacob…secure…when I carry out punishments against…who despise them…
Here comes some of his infrequent poetry;
Here I am against you Pharaoh,
king of Egypt,
the great crocodile [4]
crouching in his rivers,
who said, ‘My Nile is mine,
and I made it for myself.’
I will put the hooks in your jaws
and make the fish in your rivers cling to your scales. [5]
And I will abandon you in the desert,
you and all the fish of your rivers.
On the surface of the field you shall fall…
I will give you to be eaten.
And all the dwellers of Egypt shall know
that I am the LORD…
(Egypt) a reed staff to the house of Israel… [6]
And when they lean on you, you break…
Back to prose:
…said the Master, the LORD: I am about to bring the sword against you…Egypt…Egypt shall become a desolation and a ruin…the LORD said, “The Nile is mine…I made it…I will turn…Egypt into ruins (north to south)…it shall be unsettled for forty years, and I will disperse Egypt among the nations and scatter them…and bring them back…shall be there a lowly kingdom…no longer be for the house of Israel a place to trust…[7]
Now comes the mandatory upbeat ending:
I am about to give Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon the land of Egypt, and he shall carry away her abundance and take her spoil…I will give him the land of Egypt, for what they did to Me, said the Master, the LORD.
On that day I will make a horn sprout [8] for the house of Israel, and to you I will give freedom to speak…and they shall know that I am the LORD.
In these few selected lines from Ezekiel’s translated writings, a modern reader may not discern Ezekiel’s severe mental disturbance. Perhaps the rabbis, who chose these passages as a Haftorah to complement Va-Era, intended to sanitize Ezekiel’s image to that end.
In any case, in these selected passages for a Haftorah, Ezekiel comes across from this selection as a nearly credible prophet.
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NOTES
[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, Prophets Vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2019, p. 1049
[2] Etz Hayim,The Jewish Publication Society, 2001, New York, p. 369-70
[3] Robert Alter, op. cit., pp. 1137-40
[4] the emblem assigned for the Pharaoh
[5] This is a double curse: Pharaoh (the crocodile) will be hauled out of the Nile, and the Nile’s fish, sustenance for his people, will come along to die on dry land.
[6] Judea’s alliance with Egypt against mighty Babylon is as if a slender weak reed!
[7] This image is a recollection analogous to Israel’s Exodus experience with Egypt.
[8] a horn is a symbol in Judaic lore for strength. The prophetic sentiment is a pipe-dream.
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