■ 44:2 The man explains to the prophet that the gate has been closed because of this divine entry. Yahweh is described here for the first and only time in the book of Ezekiel with the full title, “Yahweh, the God of Israel,” which (according to Steuernagel) had its original home in the sanctuary of Shechem.
With regard to men a clear ruling has been given: No
human foot shall in the future cross the threshold over which Yahweh passed to
his sanctuary. The closed gate proclaims the majesty of the one who came. One
may ask, over and above however, whether it does not testify to a second
aspect, namely the finality of Yahweh’s entry into his sanctuary, an entry
which has been referred to in 43:7, 9 as לעולם (“for all time”). Yahweh closes behind him
the doors which he no longer intends to open for a new departure of the nature
of that in 11:23. Thus, in addition, the closed gate could proclaim also
Yahweh’s fidelity.
Here, one cannot suppress the question as to whether the
phenomenon of the closed sanctuary gate emerges here for the very first time in
the framework of the vision on the part of this prophet of the exile which has
just been sketched (or on the part of the school of his disciples who continue
to reflect on this vision).
Now Unger has pointed out a related phenomenon in the
city of Babylon. Pohl has followed him in the assumption that the “Sacred (lit.
‘pure’) Gate” bābu ellu, through
which Marduk’s procession from Esagila passed and returned again and which was
possibly also the entrance gate of the god Nabū in the “procession route of the
deities Nabū and Nanā,” was a closed gate which was opened only for the gods to
pass through. In line 440 of the New Year Festival ritual Unger finds the
mention of a “feast of the opening of the gate” which would thus determine the
date of the procession. Now, in connection with this interpretation
of “gate opening” (pit bābi) we
should note the observation of B. Landsberger: “‘Opening of the gate’ is
certainly to be understood in cultic terms (of the temple gate), but in general
the term denotes access of the people to the temple on the occasion of a
festival, but not a specific or generally wide-spread festival” (see also 4.
112). Also the specific expression “closed gate,” which Unger believes he has
found, cannot, on closer examination of his reading, be maintained. The fact,
however, that there were periods when gates were closed is assured by the
opposite expression pit bābi which
expresses the end of the period of closure. One may perhaps in this context
recall the end of Psalm 24 with its summons to the gates to open themselves for
the מלך הכבוד (“King of
glory”). Furthermore, the assumption of a reservation of the “Sacred Gate” for
the passing of the deity is extremely probable.
With reference to the Russian late Byzantine “Sacred
Gate,” which was built in 1176 A.D. in Susdal east of Moscow, Unger poses the
question whether the Sacred Gate in Babylon is not to be conceived analogously
to that as an entrance point to the temple which consisted of two gates side by
side, one of which stood open for normal traffic while the other was usually
walled up and was opened only for specific occasions. In another way one can
think of the porta sancta which
opened only once in twenty-five years in the year of the Jubilee for a whole
year. And as more distant analogies there can be mentioned also the “golden
gates” through which, in Vladimir, Kiev, Constantinople, for example, rulers
passed in triumph.
If what Ezek 44:1–2 recounts is compared with all these
different varieties of the closed gate, what strikes one is the complete
uniqueness of the justification given here for the closing of the east gate.
There is no trace here any longer of the periodic opening of the gate and the
sacred procession of the festive crowd or even of a victorious ruler. With
complete uniqueness here the gate is to be closed “once for all” because Yahweh
has “once for all” taken possession of his sanctuary, and no procession,
however sacred, may repeat this event regularly after him. In harsh
offensiveness there is to be proclaimed through the medium of this closed gate
the divine action which remains strictly over against man and which he is not
to penetrate, not even in pious cultic imitation. (Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel:
A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, 2 vols. [trans. James D.
Martin; Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible;
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983], 2:440–441)
