ezekiel and babylonian exile

Today, in line with useful breath, i read ezekiel 1. actually, i read the first 5 chapters of ezekiel and i gotta say - i'm not too moved. the section is pretty weird. ezekiel the prophet is called to do a lot of strange things . god has him lying on his left side for 390 days, on his right side for 40 days, laying symbolic siege against the city of jerusalem, baking cakes using the heat of burning excrement, cutting off the hair from his head and dividing it into fractions . . . all sorts of odd, cryptic stuff. ezekiel sounds a crazy homeless guyand i'm sure i'll be surprised if the israelites end up taking him seriously enough to change their ways.

the thing that strikes me in all this, though, is how god has a lot of disdain for the children of israel. he describes them with terms such as "hardened," "obstinate," various forms of the word "rebellious," "stubborn," and "in revolt." god classifies them as a "rebellious house" or "rebellious nation" seven times in the first 3 chapters alone! the part where god's displeasure with israel really seems to hit a high note is in 5:6-17. he says that israel has achieved lower standards than even the evil nations around her. that sounds pretty bad; what could they have done that was so bad that even the pagan neighboring nations were better-behaved? the lord goes on to say that he will bring death to israel through many means: famine, plague, sword, wild beasts, etc. israel has definitely fallen out of favor with god by the time ezekiel comes on the scene.

anyway, like i said, i don't really have much to comment on or question in these 5 chapters of ezekiel. it seems pretty straightforward: israel has sunk to new lows, god is pretty upset, am i stubborn like the israelites, and so on. but reading this and other old testament material raises one question that pertains more generically to the people of that time -- were there ever people who just weren't that spiritual back then? it seems like whether or not people were following yahweh, they were still extremely spiritual or superstitious or religious or whatever you want to call it. today we have a lot of people that just aren't too concerned about things like faith and spirituality. many people today are pretty bland about things spiritual things even to the extent that they who wouldn't even bother to take on the initiative or formality of calling themselves an agnostic or atheist. (even an atheist has staked his claim, right?). reading the old testament, it seems like everybody held some sort of faith in the spiritual realm, but i really wonder if there were people back then who were just like a lot of people out there today: blithely ambivalent about a spiritual element. hmmmmmmm.

later.