Hi, and welcome to the scriptures are real.

This is the podcast where we talk about elements of the scriptures that make them become just a little more real for us because we think we can draw more power out of them when they're real for us.

I'm your host, Carrie

Milstein, and this is a shortcast on Ezekiel, where we're going to talk about some of the

symbolic actions that Ezekiel did as kinds of prophecy. So let's just go over that concept in

general. We've talked about symbolism of the Old Testament quite a bit, especially earlier in the

year, and hopefully by now we're getting used to looking for symbolism, and especially symbolic action. Symbolism really was probably

the most, when we talk about languages, that's not like English or Hebrew or Portuguese or

Aramaic, but it's a kind of language that we use to teach and to speak and convey information and

meaning. And it's probably the most common and profound language that God used to speak to the

Israelites and with which they were expecting him to speak to them. And more than anything else,

symbolic actions spoke to them. This is true on large scale, like the way the Exodus happens.

Those are symbolic actions that speak to them.

But God often had his prophets engage in actions that were specific prophecies, sometimes

like a contest with the priests of Baal, sometimes like raising someone from the dead or healing

a spring. But often God told his prophets to do specific things that would teach

symbolically, like asking Enoch to put clay on his eyes and then wash it off, right? These are

symbolic actions that happen as prophecies, and a number of prophets are asked to do this. For example,

we've talked about Isaiah's asked to go naked for a while to symbolize how the Babylonians will be taken captive as naked slaves into Persia.

And Jeremiah does a number of things.

He throws a pot.

We didn't cover that in our podcast, but he throws a pot and breaks it.

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