We are not meeting this evening. The forecast for tomorrow evening is a 90% chance of a wintry mix of snow, rain, and sleet with a wind-chill of 18°.
On your own tonight, read through Chapters 16 and 17. Chapter 16 is the metaphor of Israel as the adulterous spouse. In Chapter 17, Ezekiel tells two related parables (like Jesus did). The first parable concerns two eagles (Babylon and Egypt) and a cedar tree (Judah’s Kings). Ezekiel immediately explains the parable which goes back to 2 Kings 24-25, and the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. As do all the readings in Ezekiel, this section ends with a future Messianic hope, as set forth in the second parable, of God taking a tender sprig from the cedar and planting it high on a hill, so that it will bring forth good fruit and all will seek its shade. Origen’s homilies in Chapter 17 are attached. Their reading is not required, however, I would especially commit to you the conclusions of both homilies wherein Origen applies the two parables to the Church of Christ.
Dinner next week is chicken_marbella. Please bring a friend of guest. No prior reading is required. Hope to see you here.
Thus says the Lord God: “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and will set it out. I will break off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of Israel will I plant it, that it may bear branches and produce fruit and become a noble cedar. And under it will dwell every kind of bird; in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest. And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.”
Ezekiel 17:22-24.