Ezekiel's Visions

 This week we read chapters from Ezekiel.  It is a shame that we are covering the whole book in just one week in Come Follow Me.  We could easily divide it up into several lessons and have something interesting to talk about each time.  In 2022, I did a post about the first vision in the book of Ezekiel. I still think it was an awesome vision and it was the main thing I talked about in my lesson for the 16-year-olds today.  I asked them how we could apply it to life today.  What kinds of captivity do people live in today, and how can God show up in power, even when our captivity is caused by our own poor choices?

We also talked about the Temple vision at the end of Ezekiel. It is a lengthy vision, spanning 7 chapters, that Ezekiel received after the destruction of the Temple.  In it he sees a temple much larger and grander than the first temple in Jerusalem. It is also much grander than any subsequent temple, including Herod's temple, and any of the modern temples. I consider it a symbolic temple instead of a prophecy of any actual temple that will be built.  I see it as a symbol of how God's church will flourish in the last days.

In Ezekiel 47 we see the river that flows from under the east threshold of the temple (v.1) It starts out as a trickle but as it continues forward it grows until it is so deep Ezekiel can't walk across it, but has to start swimming in it (v.5).  Everywhere the water touches shore, the shore springs into life, and when it comes to the Dead Sea, the Sea is cured of its salinity and becomes a fresh-water lake, where people can fish (v. 10).

So, as always in the Old Testament, we have to ask ourselves what this vision would have meant to Ezekiel and his contemporaries, and what does it mean for us today.  

For the ancients, running water had an important symbolic meaning.  In the Law of Moses, there are ritual cleaning ceremonies that can be done using water stored in jars, but the most serious ritual impurity must be cleansed using "living water." i.e. naturally flowing water. This makes sense from a purely scientific perspective.  If you have a skin disease, it is better to wash it using fresh flowing water, than using a basin where the water itself could become contaminated. I think people instinctively knew that fresh flowing water was healthier than stagnant water, so it became the symbol of power to cleanse. In the vision of the temple, water flowing out of it into the dead sea and healing that sea, probably represents  the cleansing and revitalization of the house of Israel. It was a vision of hope for the captives in Babylon, that they could be cleansed of the past iniquities that lead them into captivity, and again flourish as a nation. 

This vision still has powerful application in our day.  Almost all modern LDS temples have some form of fountain or reflecting pool on the east side of the building to represent this vision.  In modern times, the river flowing from the temple can be seen as the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It started as a trickle when the church was organized with only six original members. Since that time, and despite opposition, it has grown from a trickle, to a river, to a flood, blessing every place where the church exists.  

But, as I told my class today, it could also represent the missionaries who are going out to spread the gospel. The missionaries, mostly young people, go to the temple to receive their endowment and then go forth to heal the nations. At the beginning of the restoration, that flow of missionaries into the world was just a trickle. Now there are 95,000 missionaries, bringing the lifegiving water of the gospel to a dry and bitter world. In my class today, I suggested to my young students, "This is you. You are the water that is going to heal the earth."

Jeremiah and Lamentations: Once again cast from the Garden of Eden

 In the past two weeks we have been reading passages from Jeremiah and Lamentations.  I did two good post on Jeremiah in 2022 that you can find here and here. He had about the same place in the history of the Southern Tribes, as Isaiah did for the Northern Tribes. He was sent to give the people of Jerusalem one last warning before the city was sacked and all the people were taken into captivity. 

Lamentations is a book that contains four long poems, written during the Babylonian captivity, that show feelings of lament, regret, and even disillusionment about God. The book shows that the ancient Jews acknowledged that when things are tough, people have big emotions.  It suggests that it is better to voice and deal with the emotions, and that God will listen to our cries.  

In one of my Podcasts: The Scriptures are Real by Kerry Muhlestein, he interviews a Jewish Rabbi, Rabbi Grover, and they talked about Lamentations. He talked about how Jews commemorate the book of Lamentations.  He said it is read the same day every year.  On that day people fast and go to synagogue. The lights are dimmed and the ark that holds the scripture scroll is veiled. People purposely sit in uncomfortable chairs or on the floor. They take off their shoes and read the scroll by candlelight. During the reading people remember, not only the loss of the temple, but all the tragedies that have befallen the Jews since that time. 

The Rabbi pointed out that the first word of the book of Lamentations is Eicha, איכה, and it is correctly translated as "How".  However, if you change the vowels in the word, it could be read as Ayeka which means "where are you"  (remember the vowels were not added to Hebrew until 800 AD). That word shows up in Genesis 3:9 when God asks Adam "Where are you." Many scholars believe the connection is intentional. Just as Adam was hiding from the Lord because he had partaken of the forbidden fruit and was ashamed, Israel has hidden themselves from the Lord through their wickedness. Just as Adam will be cast out of the Garden, Judah is about to be cast out of Jerusalem, and more importantly, the Temple in Jerusalem. 

Remember that the temple ceremony (both anciently and in modern time) delineates the pathway back into God's presence. The Holy of Holies in the ancient temple represented the garden of Eden, and those symbols can still be found in modern temples. By being cast out of Jerusalem and by having the temple destroyed, the house of Israel is once again symbolically barred from the Garden of Eden. 

In the story of Adam, even though he is cast out of Eden, he retains a relationship with God, and is sustained in the telestial world. Likewise, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others foresee that even though God has driven Israel from Jerusalem because of their wickedness, he will not totally forsake them, and will eventually lead them back to Jerusalem.

Is not this the fast that I have chosen: Thoughts on Isaiah 58

 Isaiah 58 is a favorite chapter for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because we as a church are encouraged to fast once a month. Today I taught about the law of the fast in my youth Sunday School class. As I was preparing for the lesson I caught on the phrase, "Is not this the fast I have chosen?" (58:6) and it made me wonder what fast days the Lord had established for his people. A quick search and I found that in the Torah, there is only one day that was designated as a fast day, Yom Kippur. In Leviticus 23: 26 "The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves,[d] and present a food offering to the Lord." It doesn't even say explicitly that people should fast, but it is implied that people should fast and take the food they would have eaten as a "food offering".  By the end of the Old Testament era, there were several more fast days that were observed, which mostly commemorated tragedies in Israelite history, like the destruction of the temple, and the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem.  

Understanding this, the Lord's condemnation of how the Jews were fasting makes more sense. 

3 ¶ Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.

4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.

5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? 

It seems like these fast days where people were lamenting their captivity had become politicized and had turned into a time of "strife and debate," and a time to mourn in "sackcloth and ashes." This purpose of fasting is far from the purpose God proscribed for Yom Kippur.  

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, was just a little before Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the new liturgical year.  It was a time of reflection, resentence and forgiveness. It was the day of the scapegoat ceremony, when the sins of the nation were ritually transferred to a goat, that was then driven into the wilderness, taking the people's sins with it.  It was a time for fresh starts, not a time of mourning.  

As Isaiah 58 continues, it emphasizes that people are supposed to bless the poor and needy through fasting (v. 7) and seek communion with the Lord (v. 9).   When we do, the Lord promises that he will "have our back" so to speak, and empower us with his glory (v. 8).  

Later, Jesus condemned those who fasted "to appear unto men to be fasting."  He called them hypocrites and commended the practice in fasting in secret. ( Matt 6:16-18) I think this has application to the modern time.  What is our first thought when we remember that it is fast day. Is it, "Oh no. I have to starve myself?"  Instead, it should be "who can I bless with my fast today?"  That blessing can come through prayers for another's behalf, and from paying a generous fast offering.  It is not wrong to fast for inspiration for ourselves.  Didn't God promise that when we called he would answer "Her I am?"  The yokes that we break through fasting could be other's needs, or it could be our own sinful nature. 

  

Running Into the Road (Isaiah's second half)

 It has been interesting to transition from the "gloom and doom" chapters of Isaiah, (up to about chapter 39) to the "hope for the future" chapters of this week (40-47)

Last week in Sunday School I told the students that the first half of Isaiah is like a practice I did when my children were very small.  When I had a child that had just learned to walk, I, of course, tried to teach them not to run into the road.  The first time they disobeyed and ran toward the street, I scooped them up and gave them a firm swat on the bottom. When this happened they each looked at me in a moment of surprise, and then burst into tears. I wasn't the kind of mother that spanked my children usually, but teaching them not to run into the street was so important for their safety, I thought it merited a heavier hand. 

In the first half of Isaiah, Israel and Judah were both about to run into the street, (metaphorically).  They were facing, not only defeat, but destruction and captivity if they continued to disobey God. God, because he loved them, sent Isaiah and other prophets to give them warnings in the most blunt and dire terms to try to spare them that consequence. That is why these chapters are so dark and angry sounding. 

Imagine, if one of my children had, even after my warnings, run into the st

reet and been hit by a car.  Imagine me calling the ambulance and riding with my child to the hospital. Do you think that I, as a loving mother, would look at my child, lying in a hospital bed, and berate them for being disobedient?  Of course not. I would show them as much love and support as I could, and try to give them hope for a bright future. I think that is what is happening in the second half of Isaiah (or whoever wrote these chapters, there is some scholarly dispute). God sees the downfall and captivity of Judah.  They have suffered the consequences of their poor decisions, but God wants to tell them that there is hope and that he still loves them. 

If you look at isolated verses of the Old Testament, the LORD can seem like a cruel and vengeful god. But if you look at the story line, as a whole, you see that he never gives up on Israel, even when they are disobedient, and always offers covenant care if they are willing to return to him.

(I didn't have much time to write this between Conference sessions last week, but I hope it is thought provoking.)

Isaiah's Idols: a modern application

 In Isaiah 44, the prophet makes a cutting allegory about those who worship idols. Starting in vs14 he describes a man who cuts down some trees. Some of the wood he uses to build a fire and make bread, some he uses to roast meat, and some he uses to warm himself.  Then from "the residue thereof he maketh a god, even a graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it. and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god." (v. 17)  It is as if Isaiah is shaking his head at this idea. In verse 19 he says, "shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?" 

I have been thinking a lot about the challenges of artificial intelligence (AI).  Four years ago when we studied Isaiah, AI wasn't even on my radar.  Now it is beginning to permeate every aspect of society. When it first started to be readily available on a PC a couple of years ago, it was just a curiosity. I remember one night when my husband and I played around with it, asking it to make up poems, or stories, or a song on different silly topics.  Now my husband uses it every day, sometimes for hours, to work on math problems. I use it to generate illustrations for the books I write for my grandchildren, and at work to help me polish up the language in emails, or hunt for contact information. 

The thing is, when I am working with AI to generate illustrations, I ask it to draw something, and then give it suggestions for small adjustments until I get a picture I can use.  After I go through this process, which can take quite a while,  I always feel compelled to type, "Thank you," or some other polite phrase in the AI chat box. I think this is because the programmers have written the code to not only be polite, but to even compliment the user. It will say something like, "That sounds like a wonderful continuation of your story, Dee." I know the AI is a computer program, but I begin to feel like it is a person and feel compelled to treat it with respect. 

It is easy to see how a person could end up enjoying working with AI so much, that their relationship with the AI borders of idol worship.  It is even more tempting to "worship" AI than it was for the ancient Babylonians to worship idols, because AI really can do things for you that simplify your life. I had AI generate a list of local public schools, complete with addresses, and format it to be printed on Avery size 5060 mailing labels.  It did this in two minutes.  If I had done it manually it would have taken me probably an hour. AI is a powerful tool, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Like any powerful tool, it is important to use it responsibly. 

The important thing is to remember that AI programs are made by people, just as the idol in Isaiah's allegory. They do not love you. They do not have your best interest at heart. If a student asked their mother to write a English paper for them, the mother would say "no" because they care about their child and want them to have the learning experience of writing a paper. If a student asks AI to write an English paper for them, the AI will produce one in a few moments.  

How does one worship something?  They give it attention, make offerings, or even sacrifices, as a sign of obedience. They believe it can help them, follow it's instruction, and adjust their behavior to please it. I think one of the challenges of the rising generation will be to discipline themselves not to let AI become an idol.  We should worship God, but are we also worshipping computers, the internet, social media, and AI? It is a question that we need to constantly ask ourselves. I think there are already some people who are tending in that direction.

Isaiah's Temple Vision

 This week we start the Isaiah lessons in Come Follow Me.  I did some pretty long posts about Isaiah in September and October 2025. I had the interesting challenge this week of trying to introduce Isaiah to 15-year-olds with only a 25 minute lesson.  I decided to compare the writings of Isaiah to a Magic Eye picture.  When you look at a Magic Eye picture, it looks like an baffling collage of random colors and images.  Sometimes the images give you a clue to what the "magic" image will be. In class I used images from my Disney Magic Eye book, and so there were little images of Aladdin in the Magic Eye picture that was a lamp. If you know the Disney movie, Aladdin, you won't be surprised that the hidden image is a lamp. But in order to see the hidden image, you have to unfocus your eyes and look at the picture a new way.

That is like Isaiah. You can understand more about what a prophecy means if you know the history and culture of the text, but you get a deeper meaning of the prophecy if you relax your focus and see what Isaiah is trying to saying by the image. 

A great place to practice this is in Isaiah 6 when Isaiah has a vision of the heavenly council and receives his call to preach to the people of Judah. This kind of theophany was common in the Old Testament and was a sign of divine investiture. Jacob sees the vision of angels ascending and descending from heaven in Jacob 28:10-22.  Moses talks to God in the Burning Bush, but we also see his temple experience in the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price. Abraham (Gen 15, 17), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1), Daniel (Daniel 7), and others all had visions that certified that they were prophets of Jehovah. There are other accounts from non-Jewish sources of similar type visons.  Isaiah's vision of the divine council at his young age (he was probably only in his twenties) showed him and the people in his culture that he was a true prophet.

If we look at what happens in the vision, we start to see a picture emerge. Isaiah arrives at the throne room and feels unworthy to be there. "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." (v 6:5).  The one of the cherubim takes a coal from the altar and lays it on his lips saying "Lo, this has touched they lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged."

This is a powerful image.  A Jew from Isaiah's time would be familiar with the idea that burnt offerings take away sins. They had been making offerings for the remission of sins at the temple altars for generations. 

For Christians, however, there is another image here. There is an altar, and something is taken from the altar and given to someone else who puts it to his mouth.  This every much sounds like the sacrament or holy communion. Christians ritualistically partake of the body of Christ to be purified. Christians are not used to associating the holy communion with fire, but In the New Testament, flaming tongues of fire settled on the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost. Even in the New Testament, fire is a well established symbol of God's presence. 

After this purification ritual Jehovah askes, "Whom shall I send?" and Isaiah replies, "Here I am." It is the same reply that Samuel gave the Lord when he received his call (1 Sam 3). Abraham, Jacob, and Moses all told the Lord, "Here I am." 

But what is Isaiah's call? "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes." (v 6:12 Remember that in Hebrew the heart is the center of understanding).  It sounds like God is telling Isaiah to intentionally make his prophesying difficult to understand.  It is possible that the translator just got the tense wrong for this verse? One of my podcasters suggested it could be translated as "They make their heart fat etc." If, however, Isaiah was indeed called to preach in a way that was difficult to understand, that would explain a lot. For one thing it would explain why he uses veiled imagery and obscure references. But why would anyone be called to preach in a way that was hard to be understood? Perhaps Isaiah was called to preach that way so that only a select few would be able to understand. Maybe the Lord knew that destruction was unavoidable, but Isaiah's preaching would allow those who were able to understand and believe him to escape the coming destruction. That was true of Hezekiah.  He believed Isaiah and was able to survive the attack of Sennacherib. Lehi also believed the words of Isaiah and was able to escape Jerusalem before it fell to the Babylonians. 

Going back to the Magic Eye metaphor, what is the hidden picture in this chapter of Isaiah? What does it say about God and his relationship to man? Even though Israel has been wicked for a long time, the Lord is true to his covenants, and will still keep trying to reclaim them by sending powerful prophets to declare the truth. Even after the nation as a whole rejects him and becomes captive to outside forces, those who truly seek him will receive all their promised blessings. 

Ecclesiastes: Meditating in a Charnel Ground

 I was really touched by Ecclesiastes this week. Partly because I was reading, at the same time, a novel called The Correspondent. It is about a woman coming to terms with the decline of age, and making an effort to put to rights the unresolved issues in her life. It seems like the author of Ecclesiastes is also looking back at his life from old age, but he doesn't have the satisfaction of resolving issues.  He, instead, sees all his efforts as meaningless because as soon as he dies, they will pass onto another. 

I think back to the book of Job.  In the book, Job is stripped of all his worldly possessions and even his health.  Then in the end it is all returned to him double fold. One way to look at the Job story is that it is an allegory of aging.  Do we not all begin to lose everything as we age.  Our children grow up and move away, our job ends when we retire, and we begin to lose our vitality. Eventually friends and family members of our own generation begin to die. My mother had 13 siblings and half siblings, and she has seen all of them pass away except one. Eventually when you die, you lose all your worldly possessions.  They are left behind for others to deal with or dispose of at their whim. 

There is a practice in Buddhism called Meditating in a Charnel Ground. In this practice a person pictures their own end of life.  They picture themself declining in health and beauty. They picture themselves dying and their body slowing rotting away.  It the practice is sometimes even done in the places where very devout Buddhists take their bodies and lay them out in the wilderness for wild animals to consume, or in a bone house made of human remains.  The idea is that only by confronting your ultimate demise can you live your current life fully present. 

I think that is the function that Ecclesiastes plays in the Jewish Bible.  It is a way for religious Jews to confront their own mortality. It is not surprising that they choose King Solomon as their example of a person who has risen to the heights of wealth and power as their protagonists. The writer observes that even he, perhaps the greatest of all Israelite rulers, loses everything at death.  All he did, all he accomplished is left behind.  His kingdom is broken apart at his death, and even his beautiful temple is eventually ravished and destroyed.  All his great wisdom could not change the cycle of seasons, and the whims of weather. If King Solomon couldn't create anything of lasting value, than who could?  

Is there value in meditating in a Charnel Ground, or, in the case of King Solomon, realizing that everything you ever accomplished in life is fleeting and has no lasting impact? When I was younger I thought Ecclesiastes was pretty depressing, but now that I am older I find it a little bit freeing.  It is tempting as we age to try to hang onto things.  I mourned when I had to end my career. I am dismayed sometimes when I look in the mirror and see the lines on my face and my yellow teeth.  This week I as I thought about Ecclesiastes I reached a point where I just accepted that from this time forward (and actually for some time in the past) my life will be a series of letting go.  I have already let go of my good eyesight (age 40) and good hearing (age 50).  I just accept that fact that my feet always hurt at the end of the day and  so do my hips. If I can let go of those things without mourning them, I can live my life freer and happier.  Buddhists believe that grasping, i.e. trying to hold onto things, is a cause of suffering. If in old age we mourn everything we lose, we will spend our whole time mourning. It is better to accept that we will eventually lose everything, and agree with ourselves that when it is time to let something go, we just let it go. We enjoy what we have while we have it, but when it is taken away, we let it drift off like the mist in the wind. 

I also think, like the author of The Correspondent, that the best way to spend our declining years is strengthening our relationships. Are their rifts in my friendships or family relationships that I can and should mend? Are their holes in my relationship with God that need to be filled?  In the end, relationships with man and God are the only things that we carry on to the next life. That being so, why don't we spend our time on those instead of clinging to everything else?