Of all other female characters named prophets in the Bible, none of them fits the description given Ezekiel, although these women deserve that title since they prophesy with the power to
influence the life and death of people (v.22).143 When Ezekiel accuses the female prophets of prophesying ‘out of their own imagination’ (v.17), their religious faculty seems to be reduced
to black magic, deceiving people with invalid oracles and misguiding in a way that is
143 Interestingly, the text does not call them ‘prophet’ but uses the hipo’el, ‘who behave like prophets’, perhaps as a way of denying them authority; see: Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1 (Hermeneia; Philadephia, PA.:
Fortress, 1979), 296; Bowen, ‘The Daughters of Your People’, 423-428; M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 (AB 22: Garden City, NY.: Doubleday, 1983), 239; R. Wilson, ‘Prophecy and Ecstasy: A Re-examination,’ JBL 98 (1979), 329-336.
130 unfavourable in the eyes of God. 144 In regard to this classic antagonism, how different the characteristic magical features of ‘prophesy’ are from a more ‘orthodox’ form of religion
championed by establishment prophetic and priestly classes is beyond the scope of my current research. I have discussed in the previous chapters the fact that magic, miracles and divination are featured an integral part of biblical prophecy, and that whether the symbolic actions of the biblical prophets are considerably different from the ‘primitive’ magical action of other spiritualists is not easy to determine. According to Cryer:
We must understand the Deuteronomistic and priestly structure: not as a blanket prohibition of the practice of divination, but as a means of restricting the practice to those who were ‘entitled’ to employ it, that is, to the central cult figures who enjoyed the warrants of power, prestige and, not least, education.145
In a similar vein, Kapelrud points out:
The sharp words of the prophet and his indication that the attitude of the people towards the sorcerers was typical, reveals the strong grasp that the shamanistic rites still had, in spirit of prohibitions and encroachments by kings and other authorities.146
Moreover, especially in the book of Ezekiel, even if there is a tension between ‘false’ and
‘true’ prophecy, the distinction between magic, supernatural signs, and prophecy becomes
144 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 296; W. Eichrodt, Ezekiel (OTL; Philadelphia, PA.; Westminster, 1970), 169;
M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 (AB 22; Garden City, NY.: Doubleday, 1983), 240.
145 F. H. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and its Near Eastern Environment: A Socio-Historical Investigation (JSOTSup 142; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 327. See also, A. Jeffers, Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria (Studies in the History and Culture of Ancient Near East 8; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 83; N. R. Bowen, ‘The Daughters of Your People: Female Prophets in Ezekiel 13:17-23’, JBL 118 (1999), 420.
146 A. S. Kapelrud, ‘Shamanistic Features in the Old Testament’, in C. M. Edsman (ed.), Studies in Shamanism (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1967), 90-96 (96).
131 deceptive prophecy (vv.17-23). Male prophets are accused of giving false hope to the people of Israel and obscuring the fact of impending doom on the land, as if ‘daubing the flimsy wall with plaster which shall collapse in driving wind and rain’ (13.10, 13, 15). The first half of the narrative follows a conventional formula of a woe oracle, deliverance of divine outrage against false promises of peace and security (c.f. Isa 28.7-10; Jer 14, 23; Hos 4.5; Mic 3.5-8).
On the contrary, in the latter part concerning female prophets, although the prophet condemns them for their lying and deception, the focus is, rather, on their magical performances that can yield power to influence the fate of human beings, determining the life and death of the people of Israel (13.19). If their divine or paranormal knowledge is responsible for reversing
147 Ezekiel repeatedly falls into the ecstatic spirit journey and employs various sign-acts in his deliverance of the divine message. For example, in his prophetic call, the Spirit entered into Ezekiel and as a result he had a visionary experience and spiritual journey (which could be understood as a journey in the flesh as well) transported from place to place by the Spirit (3:14-15, 22, 24; 8.1, 3; 11.1, 5, 24; 33.22; 37.1; 40.1-2). Also as mentioned in the previous chapter (chapter 3, ‘The Shaman-sickness and Ezekiel’s Abnormal Behaviour’, 125), Ezekiel’s ordeal (such as: being dumb for several days (3.24-27; 24.27; 33.22); lying on his left and right side for three hundred and ninety days, forty days respectively; change of dietary habits; and alienation from mundane affairs) is similar to the shamanic novice’s spirit sickness and suffering, and also doubles as a sign-act that signifies the desolate condition of the future exiles. But his behaviour only results in people’s bafflement: ‘Will you not tell us what these things mean for us, that you are acting like this?’ (24.19) and ‘Ah Lord God! They are saying of me, “Is he not a maker of allegories?”’ (20.49).
132 the designated path of the righteous or the wicked (v.22), then their crime is not just their
recourse to pagan witchcraft or uttering false prophecy, but their serious influence on people’s minds and lives.
At this point, it is necessary to reemphasise that it is not only impossible, but it is also not an aim of my research, to reconstruct what kind of service these female prophets offered and how they acquired divine knowledge through mechanical aids. The text itself is notoriously difficult and it is impossible to say with any certainty exactly what practices these women were engaged in.148 Even if there are certain similarities between the ritual behaviours of the prophets and those of Korean shamans, as anthropological examples of religious antiquities, what I am trying to achieve is not a comparative study of mantic actions by pagan spiritualists, but rather an insight into a perpetual appeal this kind of ritualism has for ordinary people and how it generates conflicts with establishment religions. If Ezekiel rhetorically builds his oracle using generic language derived from various selections of conjurations, the crucial interpreting point is not a survey of particular types of incantation
148 Beside the difficulty of historical reconstruction, the opaque nature of Ezekiel’s oracle poses numerous translation and interpretive issues, such as whether souls/persons (vv.18,20) means living persons or disembodied souls, whether cords and veils and the process of binding and loosening have any specific purpose or are used figuratively, and whether grain (v.19) is for divining or payment . For more exegetical analyses, see: Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 296-298; L. C. Allen, Ezekiel 1-20 (WBC; Dallas, TX.: Word Books, 1994), 190-193; Bowen, ‘The Daughters of Your People’, 423-428;
Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, 239-241.
133 and their socio-historical verification, but something of the polemical situation in society that compelled Ezekiel to condemn these prophets exclusively.