Ezekiel 8:10,12  “So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall roundabout.12: Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.”

 

Let me start off by saying there are many schools of thought with regard to the Book of Ezekiel and I am presenting only one such school of thought. This happens to be the one I subscribe to and if you subscribe to a different school of thought I will never say you are wrong unless you are saying that aliens gave Ezekiel a ride in a UFO, I might have a problem with that.

 

However, where the dispute comes in is with the word ra’ah used for vision as opposed to the word chazon which is the Hebrew word for visionRa’ah is the Hebrew word for seeing both physical seeing and seeing into the supernatural world and even seeing into the mind of God or, as I believe in Ezekiel 8:12 seeing into the mind of othersChazon is strictly the word for vision as the vision seen by a prophet. It is sort of like a daytime or waking dream of an event that may or may not happen and it is usually wrapped up in symbolism.  Ra’ah can be rendered as a vision, but it is a vision of an actual event that will or has happened and is not wrapped up in some sort of imagery.

 

Now every time we have Ezekiel talking about his vision of Jerusalem and its destruction the word ra’ah is used not chazon.   Thus, he is actually witnessing these events and somehow he is actually seeing the events before they happen.  I believe the key to that is when the Bible speaks of bemare’oth a literally in seeing from God.  Ezekiel is seeing, literally, what God is seeing. God sees the future, he sees our thoughts.  Note verse 12, “hast thou seen…of his imagery?  Your imagination is the creation of pictures.  Literally God sees the pictures of your mind and in the case Ezekiel was seeing what God was seeing so he was, like God, literally reading their minds. It is sort of ironic  because the verse is saying that these people think God does not see what they see in their minds, yet not only does God see what is in their minds, but He is allowing a human like you and me to see what is in their minds.

 

There is some debate over whether Ezekiel was actually transported from Mesopotamia to Jerusalem or it was just a dream or vision.  I subscribe to the school of thought that he was actually transported both in spirit and body to Jerusalem and he was actually witnessing the events physically.  My basis for this is Ezekiel 1:1 “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth [month], in the fifth [day] of the month, as I [was] among the captives by the river of Chebar, [that] the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.”  The word here for visions is again ra’ah and not chazon.  So it was something he was actually seeing.  Note Ezekiel 8:3 “And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where [was] the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.”  Note he was touched by a supernatural hand physically by the lock of his hair (head) and his spirit lifted him up.  I know your Bible says a spirit, but that personal pronoun my is there in the Hebrew.  Then he was brought in the bemare’oth vision or in seeing from God. 

 

So I conclude that Ezekiel was physically transported by God from Mesopotamia to the very gates of the temple where he saw, again ra’ah not chazon the image of Jealousy which many commentators believe was the idol of Astarte or the Queen of Heaven.  The word jealousy is used as God was jealous that they were worshipping and giving honor to the Queen of Heaven and not to him.  But look what else Ezekiel saw.  He saw every form of creeping things and abominable beasts on the walls. The word walls is qir which is a surrounding, it could be walls it could also be what is surrounding one’s minds.  What was surrounding was chaqah or engravings or images. These could have been images or pictures in the minds of the priest that Elijah was able to see. The words in Hebrew for creeping things is remes which includes reptiles and other hideous looking creatures as well as abominable beasts. Abominable beasts is behemah where we get our word bemoth which are also hideous creatures.  What is Ezekiel seeing.  There are many opinions and I will just give you mine.  I don’t think these were literal carvings on the walls but what was seen in the spiritual realm by Ezekiel as God allowed him to see into the minds of the priest.  The Bible says Ezekiel was ra’ah(ing) which is not only seeing into the physical realm but the spiritual realm as well.  I believe he was seeing the demons pictured or engraved in the minds of these corrupt priest who were allowing these demons to come into the temple through their pagan worship.

 

There is one other aspect to ra’ah which I mentioned earlier and that is seeing the pictures in one’s mind.  I’ve talked about yiredu where you communicate with animals.  Animals, like us, form pictures in their minds.  You communicate with animals not by the words you speak, they are not capable of understanding a language but they do dream which means they see pictures in their minds. With a sixth sense that many believe they possess (this writer included) they will read the pictures in your imagination.  If you picture running in terror from them they will act accordingly.  If you picture holding them, cuddling them, loving them, they will act accordingly.  Communication comes if you can capture the picture they have in their minds.  So those who claim communication with animals will say.  Be that as it may, this is why the word  ra’ah  (seeing) is used here and not chazon (vision) as Ezekiel saw their imagination.    Actually,  what you see physically through your eyes is just transformed in your brain to electrical impulses, like a TV camera and those electrical impulses are translated into pictures like on a TV screen. Your thoughts are just electrical impulses.  You can purchase software for your computer to turn it on and off just by thinking on and off and the computer translates the electrical impulses.  The same happened to Ezekiel in the spirit world, he merely picked up the electrical impulses of the supernatural world and the thoughts the people in the temple and they formed pictures in his mind so that he ra’ah(ed) saw them.  He saw physically, spiritually and mentally.

 

So the big question is, “Why does this not happen today?”  We are people just like Elijah, we can we not see into the spiritual realm and the imaginations of men? Well, who says we don’t? Ezekiel was a man who just drew so close to God that his heart and God’s heart became one and hence his thoughts and God’s thoughts became one (like mentioned in prior studies).  Hence it just naturally follows that what God sees or ra’ah, you will ra’ah or see. No doubt God controls what He will allow you to see, but until you begin your journey to discover the heart of God you really can’t hope to see anything in the first place.

 

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