One
of the most important prophetic passages with respect to moral purity appears
in Ezekiel 36, which includes a series of oracles describing both the reasons
for Israel’s punishment and their eventual redemption and restoration to the
land. The prophet draws an analogy between ritual impurity and moral impurity
in order to explain Israel’s exile:
Mortal,
when the house of Israel lived on their own soil, they defiled it with their
ways and deeds; their conduct in my sight was like the uncleanness of a
woman in her menstrual period. So I poured out my wrath upon them for the
blood that they had shed upon the land, and for the idols with which they had
defiled it. (Ezek. 36:17-18)
Israel’s
misdeeds—specifically their shedding of blood and their idolatry—result in the defilement
of the land. Significantly, the prophet compares their actions to menstrual impurity.
. . . it should be clear that the comparison cannot have anything to do with the
acts. Menstruation is a natural, biological process, not a sin. The comparison,
then, must refer instead to the effects of ritual impurity. Just as menstruation
prevents a woman from entering into God’s presence in the temple, so Israel’s
sins result in their expulsion from the land. The following verse describes
their punishment as a scattering among the nations (Ezek. 36:19). The
comparison with the effects of menstrual impurity suggests that the most
important aspect of Israel’s expulsion is their loss of the temple, the
dwelling place of God in their midst.
Following
this description of Israel’s sins and consequent punishment, the Lord promises
to redeem Israel by bringing them back to the land. According to Ezekiel’s
oracle, however, the redemption is not a simple return. Rather, it will entail
a transformation, described as a purification from sin. Through the prophet,
the Lord promises:
I
will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your
uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will
give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your
body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit
within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my
ordinances. (Ezek. 36:25-27)
Once
again, purity has a moral dimension: it consists in obeying God’s commandments.
This obedience comes about not by the simple effort of the people, giving them
a new heart, and impaling his own Spirit within them.
A
little later the same oracle describes the transformation of the land itself,
such that people will compare it to the garden of Eden (Ezek. 36:35). Because
the temple symbolized a return to Eden for the ancient Israelites, this
reference to the garden subtly underscores the importance of the temple for the
return. In this regard, it is worth recalling that Ezekiel closes with a
lengthy description of the prophet’s vision of a new temple (Ezek. 40-48), a
temple reminiscent of Eden. This liturgical theme can be seen in the comparison
the prophet makes between the people and the flocks for temple worship: “Like
the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed
festivals, so shall the ruined towns be filled with flocks of people. Then they
shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezek. 36:38). These references to festivals and
the temple should come as no surprise. Purity and the temple go together, and
even though an Israelite’s sin did not prevent him or her from participating in
temple worship, the people’s collective sin could and did result in their
exile. (Isaac Augustine Morales, The Bible and Baptism: The Fountain of
Salvation [A Catholic Biblical Theology of the Sacraments; Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Baker Academic, 2022], 69-71)
