Day Sixty -- "Are my ways unjust, O house of Israel?"

Ezekiel 12:21 to Ezekiel 23:39

There are two things about today's reading that have caught my attention.  One is somewhat unsettling, and the other is quite hopeful.  What I find unsettling is the frequent use of women or feminine images in Ezekiel's allegories of Judah's and Jerusalem's unfaithfulness to the LORD.  Will the daughters of Eve ever be freed from the finger pointing of men who never seem to tire of blaming their disobedience on wily women (see Genesis 3:12).  Ezekiel's repeated characterization of women who have been given everything good (no doubt by men) and yet are ungrateful and wicked grows tiresome as he repeatedly makes reference to women as prostitutes, adulterous wives, and "offering your body with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by" (Ezekiel 16:25).  Ok, I get that Ezekiel does not use these images exclusively, but there does seem to be some imbalance.

It was therefore refreshing to read chapter 18, which puts forth a real turn in where the responsibility for sins is to fall.  It is not on wily women, or the disobedience of the king, or the sins of our parents or any of our ancestors.  It is the individual, says the LORD, who will be answerable for their own sins.  God is not into intergenerational punishment, but rather judging each person fairly on their own actions.  And furthermore, there is no 'one strike' or 'three strikes' or any number of strikes and 'you're out' policy.  Instead, there is the call to repentance and life:  "If a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die.  None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him.  Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live.  Do I take pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD.  Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?" (18:21-23).

Perhaps here is the promise that things are on a better track. . .