Ezekiel 20 and the Metaphor of Historical Teleology: Concepts of Biblical History

Abstract

We tend to believe that teleological views of historical change characterize the vision of people whose thinking was done within the intellectual framework of 'biblical culture'. But some biblical reflection on the nature and significance of recurrences in Israel's history suggests that it is precisely the dominant aimlessness in the recurrences in the nation's history that is significant, not some inapparent future goal. Historical recurrence teaches the lessons not of the past but of repeated experience. The experience of anti-providential historical progressions opens, for those able to see it, to an appreciation of existential situation, particularly vis-à-vis the transcendent Yahweh. Ezekiel's historical retrospect (Ezek. 20) takes up this business, tracing it through not just the exodus but all of Israel's history, from exodus to the exile. It is what Y. Kaufmann called a vision for all time.