This article aims to refute Hahn and Bergsma who argue that the prophet Ezekiel hoped the restoration of the exiles with Levitical laws of the priestly point of view rather than Deuteronomical laws from Ezekiel 20:25~26, and to present Ezekiel’s the...
This article aims to refute Hahn and Bergsma who argue that the prophet Ezekiel hoped the restoration of the exiles with Levitical laws of the priestly point of view rather than Deuteronomical laws from Ezekiel 20:25~26, and to present Ezekiel’s theological stance for the restoration of the exiles properly. After intertextual reading and text linguistic analysis of Ezekiel 20, I point out that they have the problem with the interpretation of Ezekiel 20:25~26. Regarding the laws described differently in chapters 40~48 from the Pentateuch, I argue that they had lack of understanding of genre of chapters 40~48, which was vision. It was not because the Mosaic Law itself has good and no good laws. It is also proved by the fact that no one in the post-exilic period attempted reformation by the vision that Ezekiel had seen. Thus, I argue that the restoration of the exiles Ezekiel had seen was not done by a human program that would be led from a priestly point of view but was done by the sovereignty of Yahweh who was doing for his holy name. Meanwhile, it was only by the Spirit and his servant, the "Nassi", that the Israelites could keep the statutes and ordinances of God wholeheartedly.