Va-Era (Exodus 6:2-9:35} Haftorah is Ezekiel 28:25–29:21
SAN DIEGO — This short Haftorah’s connection to the Torah reading is that it rails against Egypt as a failed ally, while the earlier Torah’s message outlines Moses’ first seven plagues against Egypt, also which failed.
It is from the writings of the prophet Ezekiel, a controversial personality different from the other prophets. His writings and images are also clearly much different from other prophets. His key visions are so fantastic, that many if not most, moderns, both Biblical scholars and physicians, suggest they were hallucinations which a psychiatrist today might attribute to psychosis.
According to Robert Alter, in his huge recent 3-volume new text, The Hebrew Bible, “…so much of Ezekiel’s prophesying is conducted in a condition that looks like God-intoxicated derangement.” [1]
In fact, there was reluctance by the ancients who canonized the Tanakh to even preserve his writings at all.
His image of himself was that of a ‘watchman’ unto the house of Israel. He also repeatedly referred to himself as son of man at least 100 times.
His most dramatic image is that of fiery, four-connected, human-like, four-faced, four-winged creatures riding/flying a strange-wheeled heavenly vehicle (Merkabah). It turned and moved in multiple directions. Above them, was a humanoid sitting on a throne, i.e. God. [2]
Incidentally, it is generally agreed that Jewish mysticism, from its beginning down to the later study of Kaballah, centered around this vision of the Merkabah.
In the concluding chapters of Ezekiel, he described types and numbers of sacrifices in a restored Temple much different from and beyond the ‘job description’ of a prophet. He behaved like a mystic. [3]
Also different from other prophets, he preferred to write in prose, unlike their preference to write in poetry. To be sure, he knew and used elements of poetry sparingly. However, even his poetic passages don’t have the lyrical and imaginative quality of other prophets.
Unlike Isaiah, whom I discussed last week, his writings are all considered to have originated by a single person, i.e. himself.
Ezekiel was taken into Babylon exile before the actual fall of Judea in 597 BCE, along with King Jehoiachin of Judea. He received his prophetic call five years later. (Rabbis have held that prophecy could not flourish outside the Holy Land, which led them to ‘imagine’ that he at least performed some form of prophecy before exile. There is no texTual evidence of this.) [4]
Right out of the box, in chapter I of his book of 48 chapters, Ezekiel opens with his fantastic vision of a heavenly chariot. [5]
This week, the haftorah is from a continuous text from Ezekiel’s Book, even satisfying the Haftorah editors’ rule for mandatory upbeat ending verses. [6]
The small amount of poetry in this Haftorah is the following:
Speaking for God:
Here I am against you, Pharaoh,
King of Egypt,
The great crocodile
crouching in its drivers,
Who said, ‘My Nile is mine,
and I made it for myself.’
I will put the hooks in your jaws
and make the fish of your rivers cling to your scales
And bring you up from your rivers,
and all the fish of your rivers shall cling to your scales.
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,
you shall not be gathered nor taken up.
To the beasts of the earth and to the fowl of the heavens
I will give you to be eaten.
And all the dwellers of Egypt shall know
that I am the Lord
Inasmuch as they have been
a reed staff to the house of Israel.
When they grasp you with the palm, you shatter,
and you crack every shoulder among them.
And when they lean on you, you break,
and you wrench all loins among them. [7]
The overall text in this Haftorah is strong criticism for Egypt, which failed Judea as its ally against Babylon, and was itself conquered by Babylon.
The literary devices in this Haftorah are mainly violent images, presented as dramatic violent metaphors. [7] [8]
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NOTES
[1] The Hebrew Bible, vol. 2 Prophets, Robert Alter, W. W. Norton &
Company, New York, London, 2019, pp. 617-620
[2] Ezekiel 1: 5-28
[3] Ezekiel, Soncino Books of the Bible, Rabbi Dr. S. Fisch, M.A, The Soncino Press, London, 1964, Introduction, pp. ix-xvi
[4] ibid. Ezekiel, Soncino
[5] ibid. Ezekiel, Soncino
[6] Ezekiel 29: 21
[7] ibid, The Hebrew Bible, vol. 2, Robert Alter’s translation, p. 1138-9, vv. 3-7
[8] Ezekiel, Ch. 29: 3-4, 29: 3-7
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Irv Jacobs is a retired medical doctor who delights in Torah analysis. He often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla, and at his chavurah.