The Book of Ezekiel is a geocentric narrative about land rights.⁽¹⁾ Although biblical scholars recognize that land is an important topic in Ezekiel, I am aware of none who identify the genre of the entire book as a land claim. Our critical methods tend to separate theology from sociology, and to be more historical than spatial. As a result, we have separated what Ezekiel regarded as inseparable, and underestimated the importance of land. This paper argues that a critical spatial perspective demonstrates that Ezekiel's theology and his sociology are two sides of a land claim.

My paper and its title follow in the footsteps of Norman Habel's significant study, The Land is Mine. ⁽²⁾ Habel makes the case that that the Hebrew Bible comprises multiple land ideologies that are based upon underlying beliefs, images, ideas, and theologies. We cannot rely on concordance searches and word studies to arrive at a unitary meaning of "land in the Hebrew Bible." Instead, we need to locate any reference to land in its ideology. Habel also emphasizes land rights. Not only do we need to identify the ideology lying beneath a particular reference to land, we also need to pay attention to what the ideology asserts about the right to land.⁽³⁾ Jan Joosten makes a similar argument in his study, People and Land in the Holiness Code. He begins his study with the assertion that "interpretation of ancient texts needs to take account of the interpretive frame presupposed, though not usually stated, in the discourse."⁽⁴⁾ Although their terminology is different, both Joosten and Habel are making the same point. Any biblical reference to land emerges from a conceptual foundation lying beneath the surface of the text.

Joosten identifies the conceptual foundation of the Holiness Code as its priestly temple land ideology.⁽⁵⁾ My paper draws heavily upon his work, and begins with the assumption that the Book of Ezekiel derives from a similar temple land ideology. This means that we cannot discover the geocentric nature of the book by doing a concordance search and counting the number of times that the word "land" occurs. Instead, we must ground Ezekiel's book in his presupposed temple land ideology.

A concrete example of a conceptual foundation is the largest single organism that has been discovered on Earth. This distinction goes to a particular giant mushroom, which spreads underground over a territory of several miles. Clusters of mushrooms pop to the surface now and then, as seemingly separated units. Underneath the surface, the separated clusters are part of one vast underground living organism. Temple land ideology in Ezekiel is much like that giant mushroom. On the surface of the text, the topic of land appears only here and there. But beneath the surface, Ezekiel's understanding of the land as temple land is the conceptual foundation of the narrative.

Ezekiel's temple land ideology shared the common wisdom of the Ancient Near East that gods owned the land where they dwelled. People were allowed to live on the land as long as they acknowledged the distinction between ownership and possession. Gods owned the land. People possessed the land at the pleasure of the local gods. Worship was the appropriate response to those who owned the land. Implicit in the concept of a god dwelling in a sanctuary is the idea that the god might abandon it. According to this common wisdom, the greatest calamity for a people is that their god might abandon the dwelling place, leaving the land bereft of blessings.

Hebrew land ideologies shared this common wisdom about land ownership and possession. Whatever the differences between them, all regarded YHWH as the absolute and exclusive owner of the land. Each land ideology begins with the foundational land claim by YHWH that the land is mine.

Ezekiel's conceptual foundation of the land as an extension of temple land is distinctly priestly. Whatever the specific differences between the priestly writings of the Hebrew Bible, all define holiness in spatial terms. Priestly ideology identifies four qualities: the holy, the profane, the pure, and the impure. Holiness and impurity are antagonistic, dynamic, and contagious essences. Holiness emanates from YHWH who dwells in the midst of the people in his sanctuary. YHWH's holiness extends outward, in zones of decreasing holiness, making the temple holy and the land pure. Even though the degree of holiness depends upon the distance from the center, the entire land is an extension of temple land.

YHWH's temple land has an enemy, the contagious essence of impurity. Just as holiness spreads outward from the temple, impurity spreads inward, defiling the land and profaning the temple as it moves. Impurity is dangerous because it threatens to displace YHWH from his temple land. Since YHWH is holy, he cannot remain in a space that has been invaded by impurity and will abandon his temple land. Since all of those who live in temple land depend upon YHWH's continual holy presence, everyone has a responsibility to keep impurity out of the land. The priests must keep the temple holy and the people must keep the land pure. This ideology, which understands the whole land in terms of its relationship to the temple, concerns more than ritual violations of the sanctuary. It also concerns spatial violations of the purity of the land through acts of violence and injustice. In this priestly worldview, nothing defiles the land more than bloodshed.

Beginning with my core assumption that the Book of Ezekiel grows out of a conceptual foundation of temple land ideology, I make two further assumptions: the book is both story and rhetoric. First, the Book of Ezekiel is a story. Whatever its process of composition and redaction, the whole narrative has the necessary elements of a classical story. In their simplest form, classical stories tell of conflicts between adversaries over a common want. Such stories describe the actions of protagonists who struggle against obstacles and conflicts with antagonists, risk everything, doing whatever they must do to get what they want. Whether protagonists succeed or fail, their struggles to get what they want lead to absolute and irreversible change in their lives.

Second, the Book of Ezekiel is rhetoric. Although storytellers write some stories only to entertain, storytellers often write their stories as arguments to take sides in some conflict. Just as conflict is the lifeblood of stories, rhetoric involves conflict between opposing adversaries over some common want. As rhetoric, Ezekiel is not just a story, it is a weapon in an argument over the possession of the land. Both as story and as rhetoric, the Book of Ezekiel argues about the right to land.

My method follows from these assumptions. To make my case that Ezekiel is a both a story and a weapon about land rights, I differentiate between the text itself and the writing of the text. To keep these two clear, I refer to the text as story and the writing of the text as rhetoric. Clearly, the distinction is artificial, since the story has its own rhetoric, and the rhetoric has its own story. However, making this distinction allows me to distinguish between the land claim of the story and the land claim that lies behind the composition of the text.

In the three sections that follow, the key word is "perspective." Section Two is a narrative perspective on the text as YHWH's claim that the land is mine and the land is yours. Section Three is a rhetorical perspective on the text as an exilic/postexilic land claim that the land is ours. Section Four is a perspective on the theology of the Book of Ezekiel for contemporary readers.

For the overview of the text, I use only the NRSV translation except for minor comments on 3:11 and 8:17. I have also substituted "YHWH" for "Lord." I have not attempted to resolve a multitude of exegetical issues or to give more than a few references to the literature on Ezekiel and the land. Aware of such deficiencies, I offer this paper in a modest effort to provide a fresh perspective on the significance of land in the Book of Ezekiel.

A story has a protagonist who wants something, and does whatever it takes to get it. YHWH is the protagonist of Ezekiel's story. What does YHWH want? He wants Israel and the nations to acknowledge his land claim, and give him due respect as the landowner of Israel. YHWH acts against other claimants to the land, risking everything, determined that he will have what he wants.

Who is the primary antagonist of the story? Although YHWH names the nations and Israel as his adversaries, neither functions as YHWH's primary antagonist. In the common land ideology of the Ancient Near East, gods owned the land. YHWH's antagonists are other gods who claim that the land is theirs. YHWH condemns Israel's idol worship and political involvement with the nations because such actions acknowledge the land claims of rival gods. YHWH's refusal to name the gods is part of his strategy to deny their claim. Most of the time, he even refuses to refer directly to the people who are worshiping other gods. Instead, he uses highly figurative language for his targets, frequently using metonymy to identify people in terms of their geographical location. In a geocentric text, metonymy as a figure of speech is especially important. Metonymy substitutes the container for the contained, the land for the people who live upon it. Throughout the story, YHWH displaces his conflict with gods, nations, and people upon the land.

Storytellers not only give their heroes a burning desire for something, good storytellers also inflict their protagonists with some weakness. Whether Achilles's vulnerable heel, Superman's susceptibility to kryptonite, or Indiana Jones's fear of snakes, such flaws make more interesting heroes, with more to risk and more to overcome. Flawed heroes are also more vulnerable to their antagonists. As the protagonist of the story, YHWH is also a hero with a weakness. By his nature, YHWH is holy and he must live in undefiled space. Since he cannot coexist in the presence of impurity, he is vulnerable to those who defile his land and profane his temple. Ezekiel weaves YHWH's want and his weakness into a story with an introduction and two parts. The Introduction is the call to the exile Ezekiel. Part One describes YHWH's strategy to abandon his defiled land and remove all of those who defiled it. Part Two describes his plan to reclaim his empty land, and repopulate it with those who acknowledge his exclusive claim to the land.

The story begins when the ka4bo=d, the glory of YHWH, appears to Ezekiel in Babylon, an unclean place. However we understand the ka4bo=d, ⁽⁶⁾ as the protagonist of a story, YHWH has taken the first action to get what he wants, risking his holiness to do so. He has gone to an unclean land to choose Ezekiel as his prophet to the exiles (3:11). In the rhetorical section, we can consider the effect of this encounter on Ezekiel. Here, YHWH begins his offensive against those who challenge his land claim.

Part One (4:1-32:21): The Defiled Land: The Land is not Theirs

YHWH commands Ezekiel to perform a series of sign actions against Jerusalem (4:1-5:17). If YHWH has called Ezekiel to speak to the exiles, why does he command these sign actions against Jerusalem? YHWH aims at Jerusalem to persuade the exiles. He has given up all hope of persuading Jerusalem to recognize his claim. Instead, YHWH treats Jerusalem as the bull's-eye of his target because it has violated its position as his dwelling place in the center of the land, the center of the nations. From his place in the center, YHWH blessed the land as his holiness spread outward from his temple. In return for these blessings, YHWH insisted that the people keep his temple and his land free from impurity. Since they did not, YHWH begins his plan to withdraw his blessing from the land, and to take the land away from those who have defiled it. YHWH's makes his intention clear. "Therefore, as I live, says YHWH God, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary, with all your detestable things and with all your abominations--therefore I will cut you down; my eye will not spare and I will have no pity" (5:11).

YHWH reveals much about his character here. With the obsessed logic of a batterer, he promises to destroy those who have challenged his ownership of the land. He will respond to violation of his space by intensifying the violation of space. He will respond to violence by intensifying the violence. He will get what he wants, even if it means destroying everything in sight.⁽⁷⁾

YHWH then turns his attention to the mountains of Israel (6:1-14). Since YHWH's holiness spreads outward from the temple throughout the whole land, the whole land is his target.⁽⁸⁾ Again using metonymy, he names the mountains but intends the people who live on the land. This time, he threatens to destroy the high places, with their altars to other gods. He doesn't name these gods, just as he doesn't name the people who worship them, but he is angry that the people of Israel do not recognize his exclusive claim to the land. YHWH knows that every time the people build an altar, make an idol, and worship another god, they are denying that the land belongs to him alone. YHWH makes clear why he hates idols and calls them "abominations." From YHWH's perspective, an idol is a visible representation of another god's land claim.

YHWH responds to these affronts to his land claim by promising to destroy all of these offending worship sites, and to take the land away from the people. With characteristic escalation, he says that he will turn defiled sites into utterly defiled ones, by strewing them with corpses and bones. Again and again, YHWH will return to another of his metonymies, his promise to make the land desolate and waste. He promises to destroy the land, but really intends to destroy the people who live on the land.⁽⁹⁾ If the people will not recognize that the land belongs only to him, he will deprive them of all access to the land. Although he promises death for most of them, he wants some to escape into exile, so that they will finally feel sorry that they turned to idols, and finally acknowledge that the land belongs to YHWH.

YHWH continues his threats upon the land, once again referring to the land but intending the people (7:1-27). Here, he changes his focus from the land claims of gods, to the land claims of people who think that worship at the altars of other gods gives them the right to possess the land. He puts particular attention upon the human landowners, not only for their worship of idols but for their violence. YHWH makes clear that violence also defiles the land. He promises that the wealth of the rich will not save them from judgment. YHWH then introduces a promise that will reverberate through the rest of his story. He will use the nations as an instrument against those who have defiled his land with their worship of idols and their violence. Since these people have relied upon their possessions, YHWH promises to hand over all their possessions to the nations.

From the far reaches of his land, YHWH comes back to the center, and takes the prophet on a visionary tour of the Jerusalem temple (8:1-18). As they move from the outer entrance to the temple porch, YHWH points out evidence of worship of other gods. From images to groups of worshipers, YHWH shows that Israel has carried its worship of other gods from the high places into his own dwelling place.

YHWH quotes the elders' justification for their actions: "YHWH does not see us, YHWH has forsaken the land" (8:15). YHWH knows the unspoken statements that lie behind this conclusion. He does not lay them out here, because he knows that the prophet knows too. "If YHWH really owned the land, no nation could capture our king and take some of our people into exile. But Babylon did invade our land, and YHWH did not protect us, and Babylon did take our king into exile. The god of Babylon must own our land. Surely, YHWH has forsaken the land."

Then YHWH shows the prophet men who are worshipping the sun. This time, YHWH condemns their violence. "Is it not bad enough that the house of Judah commits the abominations done here? Must they fill the land with violence? And they provoke me still more, for see, they send out the strong men to execute their anger " (8:17).⁽¹⁰⁾ With just a few words, YHWH summons up a history of violence by the rich against the poor. By sending out hired "strong men," the rich have dispossessed the poor from their land. Once again, YHWH responds in kind by escalating the offense. He calls up his own band of strong men with weapons, and orders wholesale violence throughout the city, beginning with the elders between the porch and altar.

When the prophet reacts against the wholesale killing, YHWH again justifies his actions by quoting those he has condemned to death. "The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'YHWH has forsaken the land, and YHWH does not see'" (9:9). He wants his prophet to know that violence against the people condemns the rich even more than their acts of idolatry.

YHWH also makes clear by this slaughter that he has no interest in persuading the people left in Jerusalem and the rest of the land. He only wants to persuade the exiles that he is still in control of everything that happens in Israel.

YHWH then abandons his house in stages, beginning from the Holy of Holies at the center, until his ka4bo=d reaches the East Gate (10:1-22). The ka4bo=dstops at the East Gate to show how the current city leaders have already claimed the right to possess the land (11:1-25). Again YHWH quotes them: "The time is not near to build houses; this city is the pot, and we are the meat" (11:13). YHWH claims to know what they are thinking, and that this strange notion of being meat in a pot means that they will be spared from exile. He promises that the violence they have inflicted will come back upon them, and that they will die outside of the land.

YHWH quotes what these men are saying about the exiles: "They have gone far from YHWH; to us this land is given for a possession" (11:15). YHWH contradicts their claim by turning their premises upside down. They think that they are safe in the land because of the temple, and they now have the right to the land that the exiles left behind. Instead, YHWH promises that the exiles will be safe in the land of exile because he will be their sanctuary (11:16). YHWH also promises that he will gather the exiles and return them to the land. In an explicit land promise to the exiles, YHWH states: "I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel" (11:17).

With his promise, YHWH envisions the purified land. This time, he will make sure that the returnees purify the land by removing all evidence of the worship of rival gods. YHWH himself will change the hearts of the people so that they will keep his land according to his requirements. As his final word, he promises to bring the deeds of the idol worshipers upon them. Then YHWH abandons the temple and the city.

YHWH next directs his rage against false prophecy (12-14). He makes a series of judgments against those whose actions have forced him to abandon his land, and shelter the exiles in an unclean land. YHWH contradicts all claims that those left in the land will be spared the coming devastation. He commands the prophet to carry out another sign action about Jerusalem, to demonstrate that those left in the land will be exiled, beginning with the "prince" who is now ruling in place of the exiled king. He also promises that the land will no longer support the landowners because of their violence. Again YHWH quotes what people are saying, only to contradict it: "What is this proverb of yours about the land of Israel, which says, 'the days are prolonged, and every vision comes to nothing'" (12:22). He quotes their belief: "The vision that he sees is for many years ahead; he prophesies for distant times" (12:27). He promises that the end is near for those left in the land. He also condemns the false prophets, those who claim that they are speaking for YHWH by promising peace. YHWH promises that these false prophets will not reenter the land of Israel. He also condemns idol worship among the exiles, and implores them to abandon all trust in idols. Finally, the prophet receives another word about the impending desolation of the land. Again, using the land as a metonymy for the people, YHWH says that judgment is inevitable for Israel's actions (14:12-20). The section ends with the promise that a few survivors will tell the exiles what has happened, and the exiles will know that YHWH was justified to abandon the land to its impending destruction (12:22-23).

YHWH then uses a series of images that blame the political leadership in Jerusalem for the current situation (15-17, 19). He describes them as a vine, and then a whoring woman. Then he describes Jerusalem's kings with imagery that ranges from the top of a cedar tree plucked by one eagle, a vine plucked by another eagle, lion cubs trapped in nets, and a tree cast to the ground. Although he weaves these elaborate metaphors, YHWH doesn't trust the exiles to understand unless he explains them. He makes clear that the political leaders have caused exile, defeat, and loss of the land.

In the middle of these metaphors about Jerusalem politics, YHWH turns his attention to the exiles in a complicated response to their apparent beliefs about why they are in exile (18). He quotes their statements in order to contradict them: "The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (18:2). "Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?" (18:19). "The way of YHWH is unfair" (18:25, 29). Through all of this, he makes clear that the exiles do deserve exile, but that it is not too late for them to repent and live.

YHWH tells how he gave the land to Israel. First, in Egypt: "On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands" (20:6). In exchange for this promise of land, YHWH asked that Israel cast away its idols, but they refused. He then explains how he planned to punish them in Egypt, but decided to save his reputation instead, and brought them out of Egypt, and gave them his statues and ordinances. He planned to punish them in the wilderness, but again changed his mind, for the sake of his reputation. He decided to keep that generation from entering the land. YHWH had the same experience with their children: they rebelled, he decided to punish them, he decided to save his reputation. When YHWH finally brought Israel into the land, they continued to worship other gods. YHWH relates this historical geography of Israel to tell the exiles that next time will be different. The next time he brings Israel into the land, he will make sure that the rebels are left behind: "I will purge out the rebels among you, and those who transgress against me; I will bring them out of the land where they reside as aliens, but they shall not enter the land of Israel" (20:38). The next time, he will not allow his holiness to be threatened by those who defile the land with their worship of idols. The next time, he will allow only those to enter land who offer their worship only to him, as the sole owner of the land.

Once again, YHWH returns to his promise that judgment is coming upon Israel. With images of fire in the Negeb, a drawn sword, and a fork in the road, YHWH continues his theme: worship of other gods, political alliances with other nations, corruption, and violence will continue to bring destruction upon the land of Israel. This time, he describes Israel's political history as the actions of two whoring sisters. In lewd detail, and with explicit political references, he pictures himself as the cuckolded husband. With this tale, YHWH tells how he was justified to hand Samaria over to the Assyrians, and will be justified again to hand Jerusalem over to Babylon.

YHWH returns to the topic of the siege of Jerusalem (24). Earlier, YHWH commanded the prophet to do sign actions about the siege. This time, he announces that the siege has begun. He mocks the elites who claimed to be safe because they were meat in the pot with an allegory about putting the meat pot on to boil. YHWH then gives the prophet another difficult task. YHWH tells him that he must not do the mourning rituals for his wife as a sign to the exiles not to mourn the impending death of the city, and the loss of the temple.

YHWH then turns his attention to the nations (25-32). As punishment for their actions against Israel, YHWH makes a series of announcement to neighboring countries. To Ammon, he says: "Because you said, 'Aha!' over my sanctuary when it was profaned, and over the land of Israel when it was made desolate, and over the house of Judah when it went into exile, therefore I am handing you over to the people of the East for a possession" (25:3-4). To Moab, he says: "I will give it along with Ammon to the people of the East as a possession" (25:10). To Edom: "I will stretch out my hand against Edom, and cut off from it humans and animals, and I will make it desolate" (12:13). To the Philistines: "I will stretch out my hand against the Philistines, cut off the Cherethites, and destroy the rest of the seacoast" (25:16). Although YHWH uses more words to describe the coming destruction of Tyre, the point is the same: Tyre and its daughter cities will be destroyed and never rebuilt. Finally, YHWH promises the destruction of Sidon. YHWH's theme for all of these judgments is that those who have harmed Israel will lose their land. When these troublesome neighbors are out of the way, YHWH will then return the exiles to the land. There, they will live safely on their own soil, as YHWH manifests his holiness upon them.

YHWH gives the dragon's share of attention to Egypt, beginning with his promise that: "the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste" as YHWH scatters the people of Egypt into exile (29:9). YHWH also says that he will give the land of Egypt to Babylon, as repayment for what Babylon was done for YHWH. With a series of oracles and images, YHWH continues with the same theme. Egypt will be defeated, its land stripped of population, and its people exiled.

After all of these statements of judgment against the surrounding nations, YHWH returns to familiar themes (33). He reminds the prophet that he is a sentinel for the exiles, and that he is responsible to warn them of the coming sword. He tells the exiles to repent and live. He again disputes the their complaints: "The way of YHWH is not just" (33:17). After this summary, YHWH concludes with a statement that summarizes all that has gone before: "O house of Israel, I will judge all of you according to your ways" (33:20).

Part Two: The Land Purified: I Will Give You the Land

The story turns with news of the fall of Jerusalem. This is the low point, the place in a dramatic story when it looks as if the protagonist has lost everything, and has no hope of getting what he wants. At this point, YHWH changes his tone and his strategy. After the prophet receives the news that Jerusalem has fallen, YHWH opens the prophet's mouth so that he can again speak. Significantly, YHWH's first topic is possession of the land. This time, he quotes those still left in the land after the fall of the city: "Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land; but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess" (33:24). YHWH promises to empty the land of all of its remaining inhabitants (33:27-28).

YHWH follows this word about the possession of the land with a short validation of the prophet. This indicates that the exiles do not believe what Ezekiel is telling them.

Then YHWH turns his attention to the leadership of Israel, using the metaphor of shepherds and sheep to summarize the failures of Israel's leadership. He says that the sheep have been scattered because the shepherds have not taken care of them. YHWH promises that he will take over as shepherd: "I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land" (34:13). After judging the sheep, and separating out the ones who scattered the sheep, YHWH will remove even the wild animals from the land, since they could threaten the safety of the people. He also promises to bless the land with rain, fruitful trees, and abundant crops.

YHWH continues with his theme of possession of the land. He will rescue the land by again judging Edom (35). With familiar language, YHWH responds in kind to Edom's violence against Israel by escalating violence against Edom, promising to leave Edom an empty land. In his familiar pattern of quoting in order to contradict, he quotes Edom's land claims about Israel: "'These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will take possession of them'" (35:10). Here YHWH makes his outrage clear over Edom's attempt to take his land from him.

YHWH again addresses the mountains of Israel: "Because the enemy said of you, 'Aha!' and, 'the ancient heights have become our possession'" (36:2). Before the fall of Jerusalem, YHWH pronounced judgment again the mountains of Israel to justify his abandonment of them. Now, YHWH promises to judge Edom for claiming that Israel was its possession.

He promises that he will once again repopulate the land, and fill it with abundance: "I will lead people upon you--my people Israel--And they shall possess you, and you shall be their inheritance" (36:12).

After YHWH promises to give the land to the exiles as their possession, he once again justifies the exile. He had to scatter them into exile, because their idols and their violence defiled his land and compromised his holiness.

Then YHWH gets to the heart of the matter. He scattered the people because they had defiled his land, but the exile itself profaned his name. YHWH quotes the statements of the nations: "These are the people of YHWH, and yet they had to go out of his land" (16:20). YHWH makes clear that he will not bring the people back because they deserve the land, but because he wants to repair his tarnished reputation. He wants to convince the nations and their gods that he is the legitimate owner of the land. He promises to make sure that the people can never again sully his reputation with the nations. He will give them new hearts so that they will follow the rules about his land. The result will be what he has wanted from the beginning: he will regain his reputation with the nations. YHWH quotes the nations: "This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined towns are now inhabited and fortified" (36:35-36). For the first time, YHWH quotes a statement without contradicting it. This is what he wants. The nations will know that YHWH is the legitimate owner of the land.

YHWH takes the prophet to a valley of dry bones, and asks the prophet if the bones can live (37). With a dramatic flourish and rattling sound effects, YHWH puts breath in the bones, causing the bones to become living people. YHWH then explains to the prophet what this means by quoting the exiles: "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely" (37:11). YHWH has made clear throughout the story that "cutting off" a people means exile from their land. He quotes their belief that they are cut off from the land forever so that he can contradict them: "Thus says YHWH GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel" (37:12).

Next YHWH tells the prophet to write on two sticks as a sign that he will gather the exiles and return them to the land of Israel. In this reclaimed land, YHWH promises to live in their midst, once again blessing the land and its people: "I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (37:27). He ends this glowing description of people living abundantly on his temple land with one more glance toward the nations: "Then the nations shall know that I YHWH sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is among them forevermore" (37:28).

From the turning point, YHWH has contrasted the situation when he abandoned the land to its deserved fate with what will happen when he reclaims the land and populates it with people who will not defile his land. Before Jerusalem fell, YHWH kept warning that a foreign nation was going to conquer the defiled land. He says that it will be different in the undefiled land of the future. He tells of a future enemy, Gog, of the land of Magog, who will try to take the land from YHWH (38-39). When YHWH lives in the midst of his undefiled land, he will protect both his land and his name from future assault. He will destroy Gog to convince the nations that they can never again claim YHWH's land: "My holy name I will make known among my people Israel; and I will not let my holy name be profaned any more; and the nations shall know that I am YHWH, the Holy One in Israel" (39:7).

YHWH will use the destruction of Gog as one final proof that Israel deserved exile. He exiled the people because they had defiled his land, damaging his reputation with the nations. When he gathers the exiles and returns them to their land, YHWH will finally restore his reputation with the nations. He ends with one final promise that he will never again abandon his people: "Then they shall know that I am YHWH their God because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then gathered them into their own land. I will leave none of them behind; and I will never again hide my face from them, when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says YHWH GOD" (39:28-29).

Finally, YHWH allows the prophet to have a vision of the restored land, with its dwelling place in the midst of the land (40-48). In this vision, the ka4bo=d returns to the temple, and the East Gate is shut, never to reopen. He promises to dwell in their midst forever, in a land where his name is never again defiled. Then YHWH details the new human geography of this undefiled land, and divides the land among the tribes of Israel. YHWH renames the city as a reminder that Israel now lives in temple land: "YHWH is there."⁽¹¹⁾

On the surface of the text, the Book of Ezekiel is a story about YHWH's call to the exile Ezekiel. The story justifies the exile and offers hope of return to the land. If we move immediately from the story to our own theological perspectives on the story, we have jumped over the Grand Canyon-size gap called rhetoric. The Book of Ezekiel is more than the story told on its pages. It is also rhetoric, a story originating in a particular context to accomplish a purpose. Some stories can be used as rhetorical weapons, told to gain ground in a factional conflict. The Book of Ezekiel is such a weapon, and gaining possession of the real ground is its partisan purpose. However we choose to appropriate this book as sacred scripture, we must first consider what it meant as factional rhetoric. If we focus on the promised gift of land to the exiles, while ignoring that this gift of land means that others will be dispossessed from the same land, we have naively turned a sword into a plowshare.

A story has a protagonist who wants something, and must struggle against adversaries to get it. Rhetors also want something, and also must struggle against adversaries to get what they want. Although protagonists might fight with swords and rhetors with pens, both attempt to get what they want in the face of opposition.

What does the Ezekiel rhetor want? How we answer this question depends on our opinions about the provenance of the book. Since my own interests on this matter are more rhetorical than historical, I make no effort to locate the composition and final redaction of the Book of Ezekiel on an exilic/postexilic timeline. For my purposes, I assume that Ezekiel is primarily an exilic text, which was amended by a bit of postexilic tinkering, to be rhetorically useful in both contexts. To consider how the story functioned rhetorically in either context, we can differentiate between an exilic rhetor and a postexilic rhetor.

What do we know of the exilic rhetor? Can we discern what he wants? The story tells us that Ezekiel was a member of a priestly family, that he was taken in 597 with the first group of exiles, and that he lived among the exiles in Babylon. Whether Ezekiel or someone else, the rhetor agonized over the experience of exile. From his priestly perspective, Babylon was unholy space, the place of the absence of YHWH.

The rhetor begins his story with a shattering event. Ezekiel encounters the ka4bo=d, the glory of YHWH, in Babylon, an experience that explodes priestly spatial convictions about holy space and the locatedness of YHWH. The rhetor explains this wondrous encounter in great detail, with colors, sights, sounds, and tastes. He wants his audience to know that this was more than a vision, it was a real event. He also wants his audience to know that Ezekiel is truly a prophet, despite his status as an exile and his location outside the land.

In this initial encounter, Ezekiel receives a call to prophesy to the rebellious house of Israel, the exiled elite in Babylon.⁽¹²⁾ Yet Ezekiel does not readily accept the call. After his first call, when he is told to go and speak to the exiles, he instead goes and sits in silence for a week. Is he sitting in stunned silence because he is awed by the experience of encountering the ka4bo=d? Is he trying to make sense of this jolt to his worldview of YHWH as the God who dwells in the center of the land in Israel? Is he offended that the Holy One, who dwelled in the Holy of Holies, had violated his own demand for spatial holiness by appearing in unclean Babylon? Is he stunned into silence by the rhetorical task placed upon him? How can he crack through the spatial constraints of his audience? How can he convince them that YHWH had appeared to him in Babylon? Whatever his reasons, the prophet did not jump at the chance to prophesy.

What does Ezekiel want? The question is irrelevant. The prophet is the narrator, not the protagonist of the story. As a character, Ezekiel has little choice in what happens to him. The rhetor sets both YHWH and the exilic audience against the prophet. As a character in a story, the reluctant prophet is tied up, rendered speechless, forced to perform strange actions, defiled by unclean food, unwilling witness to horrors, ridiculed by his audience, bereft of his wife, denied his grief, and whisked here and there at the whim of YHWH.

What does the exilic rhetor want? His wants are those of an exiled priest. He wants to explain exile in terms that are consistent with his priestly temple land ideology. He wants to blame those who caused the exile by violating this ideology. He wants to keep the community together in Babylon, offering hope that exile is not the end of the community. Most of all, he wants to go home. With the fervor of an idealist, he wants to reclaim the land and remake the world.

The exilic rhetor faces enormous rhetorical problems. To persuade his audience, he must counter the accepted wisdom of the Ancient Near East. Everyone knew that gods owned the land. Everyone knew that exile of a people was proof of the failure of a god. Everyone knew that a god who could not prevent the exile of his people did not really own the land. The exilic rhetor must counter this accepted wisdom, by defending YHWH's actions, exhorting the exiles to remain faithful despite YHWH's seeming unfaithfulness, offering hope of land to people who have lost their land, and claiming that those who now possess the land will lose it. Taken together, his story is an outrageous two-sided land claim that the land is mine and the land is yours.

To make this argument, the exilic rhetor blames everyone he can blame, except YHWH. He blames the political leadership in Jerusalem for their political alliances, which led to conquest by Babylon, exile, and destruction of the city and temple. He blames those who do not adhere to his priestly religious practices. He blames the nations, for their political actions, and their attempts to take Israel's land. He blames those left in the land, who are supposedly claiming the land the exiles left behind. He blames everyone for the exile to let YHWH off the hook.

The exilic rhetor also offers hope. He wants to persuade the exiles not to abandon belief in YHWH, even in exile, in the face of Babylon's allures and its gods. Nothing threatens the existence of a community more than exile, because a relocated society is a changed society. An imprisoned king is a radically different king than one who rules in his own land. A temple-less priest is a radically different priest than one who maintains the spatial holiness of a temple. Exiled elders in foreign settlement camps are radically different than elders of communities living on their own land. How does a rhetor convince such an exiled community to maintain its collective identity and its belief in YHWH? The exilic rhetor uses a combination of shame, blame, guilt, and land promises to offer hope to the exiles that they will one day return to the land.
 
 

The postexilic rhetor uses this exilic story for his own rhetorical purposes. What do we know of this postexilic rhetor? Actually, we know nothing of him. Did someone edit and expand an exilic version of the Book of Ezekiel? Did someone merely appropriate an exilic text and use it in the postexilic era? Did someone write the whole story in the postexilic era? We can only speculate. We do know that the Book of Ezekiel endured and became part of the Hebrew canon. From this, we can assume that it served a useful rhetorical purpose in postexilic Israel.

The postexilic rhetor uses this story as a weapon. As a story, the Book of Ezekiel claims that YHWH has chosen the exiles to be the new house of Israel and dispossessed those left in the land. With the mentality of us against them, it shows that everyone left in the land after the first exile deserved death or displacement from the land. YHWH shows scenes of their actions and quotes their words, to prove that they are hopelessly corrupt, greedy for the exiles' land, beyond repentance, and not worth saving. All deserve obliterating judgment, except those few whose only reason for surviving is to bring news to the exiles. This message of hope for the exiles relies on a theology of replacement. YHWH has rejected them and chosen us as his people. YHWH has abandoned their sanctuary to become our sanctuary. YHWH has dispossessed them of their land to give it to us.

As a story for exiles, the story claims that the land is mine and the land is yours. As a weapon in postexilic land disputes, the same story claims that the land is ours. This is factional rhetoric, setting the exiles against those still living in the land. By quoting supposed land claims by elders left in the land, it fosters resentment among the exiles. By insisting that the exiles must not mourn the fall of Jerusalem, it treats those remaining in the land as the enemy. By picturing the land as a devastated wasteland, devoid of all human population, it denies the validity of all competing land claims. After all, if no one lives on the land, the land is ours for the taking. We can easily imagine how useful such a document would be as a weapon in postexilic conflicts over land rights.

After considering the Book of Ezekiel as story, and then as rhetoric, what does it mean for contemporary readers to consider it as theology? I set my comments in the context of the invitation to write this paper. I was invited to write a paper on "land in the Book of Ezekiel" for the "Theological Perspectives on the Book of Ezekiel Seminar." I consider the invitation both a personal honor and an instructive example of significant constraints upon contemporary biblical exegetes affecting our theological studies of land in the Hebrew Bible. At the risk of appearing ungracious to my hosts, I respectfully offer two observations.

First, "land in Ezekiel" is a topic. Looking at "land" as a topic in any biblical text can easily lead to a word study approach. As a topic, "land in Ezekiel" is a terrific place to begin our theological studies, and an insufficient place to end them. As Norman Habel has demonstrated so clearly, our studies of land need to pay attention to both land ideologies and land claims.

Second, the order of the words in the phrase, "theological perspectives on the book of Ezekiel," has the effect of locating theological perspectives outside of the book of Ezekiel rather than within it. Since English changes meaning by reordering words, the location of the word, "theological," carries tremendous significance. Studies concerning "theological perspectives ON the book" begin at a different location than those concerning "perspectives on the theology OF the book.

I can guess that those who named the seminar did so to put "theology" in the first position. The designation, "theological perspectives," makes clear to the SBL that this seminar is interested in theological issues. The word order also acknowledges the postmodern insight that none of is a neutral observer. Our own theological perspectives do influence how we read any biblical text. However, if our goal is discern the theology of Ezekiel concerning the land, starting with our own theological perspectives means that we are trying to read a text grounded in the land while wearing spatial blinders

My paper began with the assertion that the Book of Ezekiel is a geocentric narrative about land rights. The Ezekiel rhetor had to deal with spatial constraints upon his audience because of their prior Ancient Near East land theology. I suggest that we, as contemporary readers and biblical scholars, also bring prior spatial constraints with us that obscure the geocentrism of the book.

One spatial constraint affecting us is that we come to the book of Ezekiel as a sacred book within a canon of scripture, whether we call that canon Tanak or Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. Whatever our own faith claims might be about this book as scripture, the spatiality of Ezekiel-as-scripture is far removed from the spatiality of Ezekiel-as-rhetoric. Rhetoric attempts to persuade a particular audience in a particular historical, social, and geographical context of a particular argument. The process of canonization disconnects a text from its own time and place and social context, to claim that its meaning and relevance now extend to all times, places, and social contexts. Land, which was both the ground and the purpose of Ezekiel-as-rhetoric, has become only one topic, among more important topics, in Ezekiel-as-scripture. In the process, we have lost the essence of an argument about the relationship between God, land, and people, and turned Ezekiel into ungrounded scripture about the relationship between God and people, without noticing that land was what held the two together in Ezekiel's theology.

A second spatial constraint upon us is that we are not defined by our connection to land the way Ezekiel's audience was. Of course, we all know that much of who we are is a direct result of where we are, and where we have been. However, most of us have lived, studied, worked, and traveled in a multitude of places, across a range of state lines and international boundaries. We are citizens of a post-industrial, global village connected by cyberspace. We assert theologies about a God who transcends the limitations of time and space. As a result, we have little in common with the ancient, land-identified, agrarian people, with their land-owning God, who were wrenched by violence from the only place they had ever lived, and taken to an alien desert land, to live as exiles in Babylon.

My reading of secondary literature on Ezekiel convinces me that contemporary readers tend underestimate those words: "to live as exiles in Babylon." Our historical bias causes us to argue about whether the composition of the book was exilic or postexilic, in whole or part, but we tend to treat exile as a historical fact among other historical facts, without lingering long enough on what exile meant to those led away to Babylon. I have even read scholarly comments about how exile wasn't all that bad, since the exiles had places to live, and their king got first class treatment at the palace. Such facile comments underestimate the devastating impact of exile upon the community.⁽¹³⁾

Another spatial constraint upon us is that our discipline teaches us to be much better historians than geographers. My own critical spatial method begins with two assertions by Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja. The first is that our critical methods have privileged temporality over spatiality, giving a bias to history over geography. The second is that "two terms are never enough." Lefebvre and Soja argue that temporally-biased scholarship tends to deal in either/or categories that exclude spatiality. Their remedy is to add spatiality as the third term, which turns either/or into both/and.⁽¹⁴⁾

A practical example of both/and is a United States quarter. An image of George Washington appears on the front. Another image appears on the reverse, such as an eagle or a state symbol. Yet a quarter is more than front and back. It also has a middle. A quarter has a visible copper layer joining front and back, creating a whole object with three inseparable parts. Any effort to separate front, back, and middle destroys the coin.

By adding spatiality as the third term, we can avoid the tendency in biblical scholarship to separate theological perspectives from sociological ones. For an example, I respectfully cite the methodological dichotomy at the beginning of Norman Habel's book, The Land is Mine. He has set up his study of land ideologies in terms of a dichotomy between biblical theology and biblical ideology. Habel defines biblical theology as "the doctrine and discourses about God expressed within a biblical literary unit that reflect the living faith of the community." He then defines a biblical ideology as a "complex and contested set of ideas, values, symbols, and aspirations being promoted with social and political force in a given literary complex to persuade the implied audience within that text of the truth of a given ideology."⁽¹⁵⁾ At the risk of oversimplifying these careful definitions, the distinction seems to be that theology is about God and ideology is about society. Although he asserts that the distinction between biblical ideology and biblical theology is subtle, Habel's methodological choice separates theology from sociology. By treating theology and sociology as separable categories, he then concentrates on biblical land ideology as a sociological category apart from theology. I regard this methodological choice as the greatest weakness of Habel's splendid book.

As an example of another dichotomy with implications for our study of land in the Hebrew Bible, I also respectfully cite Daniel Block's two-volume commentary on Ezekiel. Block's own "fundamental" theological conclusions are expressed in terms of a dual relationship between God and people. In Block's words, "Ezekiel's overriding purpose is to transform his audience's perspective of their relationship with Yahweh, exposing delusions of innocence and offering a divine understanding of reality."⁽¹⁶⁾ Although Block clearly addresses the topics of land and exile, he has created a dichotomy that leaves spatiality out of the equation.

In a triad of God, land, and people, Habel has tended toward land and people, and Block has tended toward God and people. By insisting that two terms are never enough, a critical spatial perspective moves us beyond such dichotomies to ask how any reference to land in a biblical text is simultaneously theological and sociological.

My argument is that the Book of Ezekiel is a two-sided coin, with theology on one side and sociology on the other, joined by a spatial middle. Theologically, the narrative asserts that YHWH is still the owner of the land. Sociologically, it asserts that the exiles are the new house of Israel and that YHWH will give the land to them. These two land claims are held together by Ezekiel's temple land ideology.

Although the metaphor of Ezekiel-as-a-quarter demonstrates both/and, it is also misleading. Ezekiel's temple land ideology is much more than a connective between theological claims and social claims. Instead of being a quarter, with a distinct copper middle, Ezekiel is a two-sided penny made completely of copper. One side of the penny is embossed with the land is mine. The other side is embossed with the land is yours. The Book of Ezekiel is a whole coin is made of one material, its temple land ideology, which has been shaped and embossed into a single object about the land. The difference between a theological perspective or a sociological one is only a matter of whether we are looking at the front or the back. Both as a story that claims the land is mine and the land is yours, and as rhetoric that claims the land is ours, the Book of Ezekiel is a theological and sociological land claim.

1. ¹ John Kutsko characterizes the Book of Ezekiel as "radically theocentric." I have modified his label to argue that Ezekiel's theology of presence and absence is grounded in the land. See Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth: Divine Presence and Absence in the Book of Ezekiel, Biblical and Judaic Studies, 7(Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 27, n.4.

2. ² Norman C. Habel, The Land is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies, Overtures to Biblical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995).

3. ³ Habel, 3.

4. ⁴ Jan Joosten, People and Land in the Holiness Code: An Exegetical Study of the Ideational Framework of the Law in Leviticus 17-26, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, LXVII (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 1.

5. ⁵ See especially his discussion in Chapter Six, "YHWH's Land and Israel's Land," Joosten, 169-192.

6. ⁶John Strong relates the ka4bo=d to Zion ideology, and argues that the ka4bo=d was hypostasis rather than presence. See "God's Ka4bo=d: The Presence of Yahweh in the Book of Ezekiel, in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives (ed. Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong: Atlanta: SBL, 2000), 69-95.

7. ⁷ In, "If the Earth Could Speak: The Case of the Mountains Against YHWH in Ezekiel 6, 35, 36," forthcoming in The Earth Bible, 4 (ed. Norman C. Habel), I argue that Ezekiel's YHWH fits the profile of a batterer.

8. ⁸ For a particularly insightful reading on land in Ezekiel, see, Julie Galambush, "Castles in the Air: Creation as Property in Ezekiel," SBL Seminar Papers 1999 (SBLSP 38: Atlanta: SBL, 1999), 147-172.

9. ⁹ The Earth Bible attempts to read biblical texts from the perspective of Earth. Although I will not pursue the point in this paper, an ecojustice reading of the Book of Ezekiel demonstrates that this geocentric book shows little concern for Earth.

10. ¹⁰ For translation of words in italics, see Nahum Sarna, "Ezekiel 8:17: A Fresh Examination," in Studies in Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2000), 305-310.

11. ¹¹ For my argument that Ezekiel 40-48 is a new human geography, see The Vision of Transformation: The Territorial Rhetoric of Ezekiel 40-48, SBL Dissertation Series 154 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996).

12. ¹² The NRSV translates the waw of 3:11 as "then," indicating a distinction between the rebellious house of Israel and the exiles. Grammatically, this waw could be translated simply as "and," indicating a continuation rather than a disjunction. By considering the entire narrative, I take this waw as a continuation of Ezekiel's address to the exiles. Throughout the narrative, the rhetor makes clear that YHWH has abandoned those left in the land, and chosen the exiles.

13. ¹³ The best introduction to Ezekiel that I know is, Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Bantam Book, 1960). For Wiesel, his exile into a Nazi concentration camp, as a member of an exiled community, slashed to the core of his identity and his faith. For Ezekiel and his community, exile in Babylon was no less devastating.

14. ¹⁴ Edward W. Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 1-8.

15. ¹⁵ Habel, 11.

16. ¹⁶ Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 1:14.