Texts in Conversation
Exodus 22 commands Israel to give God their firstborn sons. Ezekiel describes God admitting that some of the earlier commands led to ruin, singling out the firstborn law as the one connected to child sacrifice.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 22:29
Hebrew Bible
28 “You must not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people. 29 “Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the firstborn of your sons. 30 You must also do this for your oxen and for your sheep; seven days they may remain with their mothers, but give them to me on the eighth day.
Ezekiel 20:26
Hebrew Bible
24 I did this because they did not observe my regulations, they rejected my statutes, they desecrated my Sabbaths, and their eyes were fixed on their fathers’ idols. 25 I also gave them decrees that were not good and regulations by which they could not live. 26 I declared them to be defiled because of their sacrifices—they caused all their firstborn to pass through the fire—so that I might devastate them, so that they would know that I am the Lord.’ 27 “Therefore, speak to the house of Israel, son of man, and tell them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: In this way too your fathers blasphemed me when they were unfaithful to me.
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Notes and References
… A parallel tension of voices arises in the next verse. Verse 26 points to the Pentateuchal first-born laws as chief among God’s ‘bad’ legal statutes, problematizing the question of who is ultimately responsible for child sacrifice in Israel. Is Israel to blame or is God? Verse 31 makes Israel culpable, which is the natural, ‘innocent’ view of how cosmic justice should work. The Holiness Code covenant specifies dire punishments for child sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21; 20:2). Ezekiel 20:26, in contrast, incongruously declares that God has manipulated the covenant to bring Israel kicking and screaming back to knowledge of YHWH (see verse 33). ‘I defiled them through their very gifts … so that they might know that I am the Lord’ (verse 26). The ironic inversions in Ezekiel 20:25–26 are deeply unsettling. With these verses the prophet risks pinning himself as a cold fatalist about Israel’s spiritual potential. Really, Ezekiel? God games the system of Israelite covenantal ethics? How offensive! …
Cook, Stephen L.
"Irony in Ezekiel’s Book" in Häner, Tobias and Virginia Miller (eds.) Irony in the Bible: Between Subversion and Innovation
(pp. 237-238) Brill, 2023
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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