Состояние вопроса

Anyone who dares to make the first chapter of the prophet Ezekiel the subject of study must begin with the question of whether this chapter is accessible to any explanation. Presenting the most mysterious of visions, she, in the words of German exegetes, laughs at any attempt to explain it. This chapter has been recognized as inexplicable since ancient times. It is known that among Jews those under thirty years of age were forbidden by rabbinic rules to read it (M. Schabb. 1.13 b). This honorable prohibition was imposed only on the last chapters of Ezekiel (40–48), on the first chapter of the book of Genesis and on the Song of Songs (bl. Jer., preface to Ezek.). When Ananias, a contemporary of Gamaliel I (teacher of the Apostle Paul) undertook an interpretation of this chapter and several other difficult passages of the book. Ezekiel, they said that during this work, 300 barrels of oil burned out in his lamp, which his neighbors had kindly delivered to him (Schabb. 13 b; Chagiga 13a). But how little has been done to understand Chapter 1. Ezek. This explanation can be seen from the remark of the blzh. Jerome, that in his time all the synagogues of the Jews were silent about her, convinced that it was beyond human power to say anything about her (on 1:5). It has a reputation for inexplicability in Christian Science as well. Blzh. Theodoret interrupts his interpretation of this chapter with the question: “Is it possible to explain the vision described in it?” (at 1:5) Calvin “does not admit that this chapter can be understood” (Praelections in Ezechielis proph 20 capita priora, Genevae 1565. Sr. Rose) Modern biblical scholars consider it the darkest place in the Old Testament. Meanwhile, hardly any page of the Bible is more in need of explanation than this chapter. Beginning with itself the book of the “greatest” (Greek. God.) of the prophets, it constitutes a door that must be unlocked in order to understand this book. It is clear from everything that the prophet Ezekiel wanted the first chapter to attract his attention the most out of the entire book. This chapter does not merely constitute a simple introduction to the book. The appearance of God described in it to Ezekiel did not have the same effect as the appearance of, for example. Isaiah, the purpose is only to call the prophet to serve. This appearance of God was the greatest of the Old Testament revelations of God. It is then repeated more than once during the prophet’s ministry, as if following him. The Prophet, noticeably, looks at this vision as the main and central revelation to him. Epiphanies in general constitute the most complete and perfect revelation of the Divine. Therefore, maybe they were not accessible to all prophets: and of the so-called great prophets, Jeremiah, for example. does not mention the appearance of God to him. But between the appearances of God, the appearance to Ezekiel, described in Chapter 1. his books occupy an exceptional position. It can be said that none of the prophets to whom God appeared saw as much as Ezekiel saw during this appearance. Appearing almost for the last time in the Old Testament, God, when appearing to the prophet Ezekiel, seemed to want to show as much from the sphere of his existence and life as could be shown to man. God brought the Prophet Ezekiel to such terrible closeness to his throne, to which a person can be brought, or rather, to which none of the people, with the exception of this prophet and perhaps even John the Theologian, could be brought. Entirely occupied with God, His life, the very depths of His being and the most mysterious side of His activity in the World, the first chapter of pr. Ezekiel, more than anything else, can rightfully be called a divinely inspired treatise on God. For anyone who sees the Bible as more than a simple book, in any case there can be no doubt that this chapter must contain some great mystery of theology. No section of the Old Testament can promise as much new things for the student as this chapter. If such great and written prophets as St. Ezekiel, God raised up to communicate new revelations about Himself; if each of these prophets, as they now say about writers, said something new, then this new thing should be looked for in St. Ezekiel, ch. arr. in chapter 1 of his book. Until this chapter is understood, Ezekiel as a prophet will remain ununderstood. For this reason alone, this chapter cannot be completely inexplicable. But one cannot begin to explain it with the same standards and such requirements with which one begins to interpret other passages of Holy Scripture. If in Holy Scripture not everything can be explained at all, then the area of ​​​​this inexplicable in Chapter 1. Ezek. must be especially large. What this chapter contains and speaks about is beyond human thought and speech (cf. 2 Cor. 12:4). Therefore, in Chapter 1 Ezek. we are dealing not with concepts and judgments, but with images and similes. It seems that the task of the interpreter of this chapter is to translate these images into a clear conceptual language. This is how this task is understood by interpreters. At the same time, it is overlooked that images and comparisons, moreover, so strange and unnatural, were needed here because the word and concept were powerless. Consisting of mysterious images, Chapter 1. Ezek. a thought (idea), not allowing for an exact and distinct definition (formulation), can only be approximately outlined through a comparison of the present vision with other visions and epiphanies and clarification of its place and meaning among them. In addition to this not entirely incomprehensible side, 1 ch. Ezek. имеет другую сторону, которая по-видимому вполне доступна пониманию и должна быть главной, ближайшей целью толкователя. Описывая свое таинственное, и потрясающее видение, пророк прежде всего хотел, чтобы мы участвовали с ним в его видении. По-видимому, мы должны иметь полную возможность читая описание пророка быть, хотя не понимающими, зрителями того, что пророк видел. По рассказу пророка мы во всяком случае должны быть в состоянии составить себе представление о том, что он видел. Но оказывается, что по отношению к видению, описанному пророком Иезекиилем в 1 гл. his books, such a modest goal is not easily achieved. Blzh. Theodoret says that St. Ezekiel found it difficult to tell his vision. It should be noted that in general visions are not easy to describe. Ap. Paul outright refused to describe his visions (2 Cor. 12:14). The prophets who had visions, perhaps no less majestic than Ezekiel's, either passed them in silence (Moses) or described them much more briefly (Isaiah). After this, it should not be surprising that the detailed description of the most mysterious of visions given by St. Ezekiel is difficult to understand even from the literal sense. In order to have an idea of ​​all the difficulties that the description of his vision generally poses for the prophet, you need to pay attention to the state in which the prophet is during the vision. This state is a state of extreme horror, frenzy, ecstasy (Dan. 9:15; 10:8, 9; Mark 16:5, 8; Luke 24:5; Acts 11:5). In such a state, the prophet, of course, could not observe what appeared to him with the calmness that is required to form a complete and clear idea about the observed object. Moreover, we must remember that the objects of prophetic visions are not material objects, but spiritual and incorporeal, and therefore they could not be seen by the prophets with such tactile-rough materiality as objects of the external world. The images of the visions could be not entirely tangible, elusive, subtle, as sometimes the images of a light dream are. In Hebrew, the state of the prophets during a vision is called a word literally meaning “sleep”: תַּרְדֵּמָה (Gen. 15:12 and many others; cf. 1 Sam. 26:12; Proverbs 19:15, etc.). It is possible that in the visions not all parts of the objects that appeared were visible with equal clarity; so it is unlikely that Isaiah saw with the same clarity the image of the Lord sitting on the throne with which he saw the seraphim 1: he describes the latter in detail, but says nothing about the first main thing. Some parts in the vision might not be visible at all: so the face of God in Ezekiel in chapter 1. does not see, but sees only part of the image of God “from the loins and above” and “from the loins even to the bottom” (v. 27). Hence, in visions there are often gaps and breaks in the field of vision: so in the present vision the connection between the individual parts of the vision is not shown: animals, wheels and the firmament; the mysterious church of Ezekiel (40–44 chapters) is described, although in detail, but very incompletely. So, each description of Ezekiel, in its essence, must be somewhat dark, vague, with gaps and omissions. The Prophet could not paint a clear and complete picture of his vision. Even Raphael was unable to convey the Khobar vision as described by St. Ezekiel onto canvas: his painting of this vision (kept in the Pitti Gallery in Florence) is one of the unsuccessful ones, according to experts. After what has been said, one must still be amazed at the completeness and detail with which St. Ezekiel described the vision on Chebar. With his first chapter, Ezekiel, one might say, accomplished a task that could hardly be accomplished even by a divinely inspired pen. As one reads this chapter one can clearly see how the prophet struggles with the difficulties of the subject matter depicted. For what he saw, he seeks comparisons between the rarest things on earth, the names of which were not understood by such ancient readers as LXX interpreters (chaschmal art. 5 - in LXX “ilektr”, “vision of Bezekov” art. 14. Tarsis, art. 16, kerach - LXX “crystal” art. 22). But the prophet is aware of the complete insufficiency of these comparisons and constantly notes that all this is only a weak “likeness” (demuth), a kind of “image” (mareh) of what he contemplated. The whole chapter is dotted with the particle “as if” (כ). Feeling the insufficiency of one comparison, the prophet supplements it with another, and a third (v. 24), returns to what was said before (vv. 9 and 11, v. 11 and 23, v. 24 and 25), resorts to the rarest words (ἅπαξ λεγόμενα: mithlacachath art. 4, calal art. 7. rezu v. 14, beth-lah v. 27). In a word, the prophet Ezekiel did everything possible for his part to ensure that his reader received the most accurate and complete understanding of the vision. And the prophet achieved his goal, as far as it was achievable. The reader (of course, the reader who has come to understand the prophet, more obscure here than anywhere else) cannot help but see before him these terrible powerful figures of vision. Mysterious wheels look at him with real eyes, so terrible in that it is not people or animals who look at him, but wheels, and the reader begins to tremble with the prophet before his vision. He begins to understand what it meant to see all this in reality, what it could set one up for, what such a vision could do to a person. Dedicated to such an important and mysterious subject, the first chapter of St. Ezekiel, despite its difficulty in understanding, with irresistible force attracted the attention of theologians of all times. Everyone realized that the difficulty here stems from the extraordinary importance of the subject, and this kind of difficulty should not stop, but encourage and encourage research. The ancient Jews, afraid to study the first chapter of St. Ezekiel, nevertheless considered it the height of the most mysterious theology and made it the basis of their, admittedly very arbitrary, theosophical constructions. They even called all mysterious theology (mysticism) by the name of the first chapter of St. Ezekiel - mercavah (which means “chariot”, since God appeared to St. Ezekiel riding, as it were, on a cherubic chariot), just as they called natural theology bereschith, the first word of the book of Genesis (Ros. 1, 4). The Holy Fathers, sharing the opinion of the ancient Jews about the extraordinary difficulty of this chapter (Jer. 1.s.), nevertheless made it the subject of reverent reflection and even recognized the explanation as more necessary for it than for any other place in the Old Testament. So Macarius the Great and Gregory the Theologian (Annotatio de quatuor apud Ezechielem animalia) left an interpretation on it alone from the entire Old Testament. Gregory Dvoeslov considered it necessary to compose an explanation only for the first three chapters of the entire book of St. Ezekiel. Fathers and teachers of the church who wrote or undertook interpretation of the entire Bible, like the blessed one. Jerome, blessed Theodoret, did not pass this chapter in silence; although they began to explain it with some fear. Blzh. Jerome begins his interpretation by apologizing to the reader that he intends to offer “guesses rather than explanations,” and begs for leniency. Unfortunately, the church fathers did not leave us with a real manual explanation of this chapter, but only brief comments on it. And in these remarks they do not so much clarify the direct meaning of the prophet’s words as make of them an allegorical application for moral purposes. Their conversations on this chapter are precisely conversations, teachings, and not an interpretation of it in its own sense. After the fathers, theological thought, both Christian and Jewish, both in the Eastern Church and in the Western, almost continuously, from generation to generation, worked on the mysterious vision of Ezekiel. And it cannot be said that these centuries-old efforts were completely fruitless. But the interpreters of Holy Scripture were still concerned with the mysterious chapter of St. Ezekiel little more than any other place in the Old Testament. It, by virtue of direct necessity, had to be dealt with by those who undertook the interpretation of the entire Old Testament. When explaining the book of Ezekiel among others, it was impossible to omit its first chapter. Naturally, these interpretations, out of obligation (ox officio), give the impression that their compilers are in a hurry to skim through the dark and difficult beginning of the book of St. Ezekiel and enter the rewarding field of interpretation of its clearer parts. The best commentaries on Ezekiel Ave. must be recognized as Maldonat, Rosenmuller, Gefernik, Gengstenberg, Keil, Schroeder and Knabenbauer; from rationalists: Ewald. Hitzig, Smenda, Bertolet, Thay, Kretschmar. It is quite strange that the first chapter of Ave. Ezekiel has not yet received a special study. From the side of our domestic theological science, which is still awaiting development, this is not surprising. But from the side of Western science, where it seems that everything possible has been done to explain every biblical term, every proper name, the name of the most insignificant plant and animal mentioned in the Bible, such an omission can be called inexcusable. Shyness before this head of the ancient Jewish synagogue seemed to have transferred to Western science, which is far from being timid at all. Only small articles about the first chapter of St. Ezekiel appeared both in the West and here. Two such articles appeared abroad not very long ago: one, a small note of less than 3 pages in Winkler’s publication “Altorientalische Forschungen”, IV, 1896 (Die tiergruppe in der vision Ezechiels); the second, more extensive (in the Revue biblique 1894, October) belongs to the Jesuit Hebrans and expresses a very unique view of the vision of St. Ezekiel. Russian science also gave two articles on this issue. First prof. P. Yungerova: “The biblical nature of the vision of the prophet Ezekiel, described in chapters I–III of his book” in “Readings in the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment” for 1884. The second in “Christian Reading” for 1895 by A.P. Rozhdestvensky: “The Vision of the Holy Prophet Ezekiel on the Khobar River.” The last article is especially important. It introduces us briefly to everything that has been done to explain the first chapter of the prophet Ezekiel abroad. The article does a lot to restore the correct reading of controversial passages in the chapter and to explain the meaning of words with lost meaning. In itself, such a long work on Ezekiel's vision of theological thought guarantees that much of the vision should have become clearer. Now, in any case, it does not present such a frightening mystery to the researcher as it presented before. Carefully compared with other biblical visions and epiphanies, and receiving some illumination from the latest discoveries in the region of ancient Chaldea, it, at least in particulars, has become clearer. But reading those random and fragmentary comments on the Chebar vision, which are given in biblical commentaries and manuals, as well as in these few and small articles about it, one can clearly see that theological thought has not yet made the last effort to explain this mysterious vision. The explanation was carried out more by a narrative-descriptive method than, so to speak, by a pragmatic one. Based on the grammatical meaning of each word and expression of the prophet, they simply indicated what the prophet saw, without raising the question of why he saw this way and not another, this and not that. Meanwhile, in relation to such a strange epiphany as Khovarsky, which is so attacked by negative science, such a question is far from unnecessary and not idle. In general, it should be noted that the countless textual difficulties of the first chapter of Ezekiel, grammatical difficulties (unclear structure) and philological difficulties (incomprehensible words), presented in almost every word in some verses, have obscured the very content and thought of it for researchers of the first chapter of St. Ezekiel. Philology, which is generally useful in interpretation, in this case did a lot of harm: it is easy to see sometimes how it positively prevents the interpreter from concentrating on the thoughts of the prophet. Explaining a name by its lost meaning, such as. chaschmal (ilectr) or calal (shine), interpreters consider their work finished when they have compared this name with all not only Hebrew and Chaldean, but also Arabic, Syriac and all other monophonic roots, even if the latter had the most opposite meanings, the reader is left to choose any from this set of meanings, while the author himself admits that it is difficult to decide which are more likely. Meanwhile, in order to understand the vision, in order to follow its picture, the meaning of the word used by the prophet is not so important, but some idea of ​​the designated object is important, and then only from the side of this object with which it is taken by the prophet for comparison. And this idea can very often be extracted from the course of speech of the prophet, from the development of his story, or from comparison with other uses of the word in sacred authors. Eg. and without knowing what chaschmal is, it is possible to accurately determine its brilliance (as we will show in its place), and this is the whole point; We, one might say, don’t need more to understand the prophet. Or: and without knowing which of the precious stones the prophet means by the name “Tarshish” (v. 16), it is possible, through some hints from the prophet himself and other places in the Bible, to determine the color of this stone, which is quite enough to form an idea of ​​​​the wheels of vision, which had the appearance of Tarshish. Or again: the prophet’s description of the legs of animals, which (the legs) had the appearance of calal copper, leaves no doubt for the attentive researcher about the meaning of the last word, to the explanation of which the whole of Eastern philology was unsuccessfully involved. Thus, the letter, so difficult, dark and controversial here, unwittingly distracted interpreters from the spirit and thought of the chapter. In the first chapter of St. Ezekiel thus interpreted, we do not so much participate with the prophet in his vision as listen intently to his unclear story. It would be different if we immediately entered the soul of the narrator, grasped the essence and thread of his story and were sometimes able to predict his next word, further detail in the story. And undoubtedly this should be the reading and explanation of every writer, including the divinely inspired one. We will not point out here other shortcomings in the existing interpretations of the first chapter of Ezekiel: they will be visible and shown, each in its place. Let us only note that among these shortcomings and errors there are those that significantly affect the entire structure of the vision, its entire picture. For example, as is known, mysterious animals in the Khovar vision appear to the prophet with four faces. This feature of animals is understood by interpreters either in such a way that animals receive the monstrous appearance of multi-headed creatures, or in such a way that this feature of them, the main feature, is completely destroyed and denied. Then, the lack of attentiveness in studying the present vision was reflected in the fact that attention was not paid to the various difficulties in presenting the vision generated by the prophet’s story, sometimes even to visible contradictions and impossibilities in constructing it. These difficulties and contradictions are noticed and pointed out (with clear purpose and application) only by negative criticism. As for finally the question of the meaning or mysterious sign of the vision, then on this difficult and main issue, despite the many proposed solutions to it, one can say that nothing has been done yet. The question itself was posed incorrectly. In a word, theological science cannot say that in relation to the first chapter of St. Ezekiel it has done everything that can be done and what should have been done. This is what the rabbis think: Malbin in “וג יחידה נפצת ספר” (Warsaw 1871, ch. 33) based on Ex. 33:20 concludes that Isaiah could not see God except “in a fog.” You might be interested in: