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Ez 1:26-28 1137
Mt 17:23 554; Mt 17:24-27 586
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Reading 1
Ez 1:2-5, 24-28c
On the fifth day of the fourth month of the fifth year,
that is, of King Jehoiachin’s exile,
The word of the Lord came to the priest Ezekiel,
the son of Buzi,
in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar.—
There the hand of the Lord came upon me.
As I looked, a stormwind came from the North,
a huge cloud with flashing fire enveloped in brightness,
from the midst of which (the midst of the fire)
something gleamed like electrum.
Within it were figures resembling four living creatures
that looked like this: their form was human.
Then I heard the sound of their wings,
like the roaring of mighty waters,
like the voice of the Almighty.
When they moved, the sound of the tumult was like the din of an army.
And when they stood still, they lowered their wings.
Above the firmament over their heads
something like a throne could be seen,
looking like sapphire.
Upon it was seated, up above, one who had the appearance of a man.
Upward from what resembled his waist I saw what gleamed like electrum;
downward from what resembled his waist I saw what looked like fire;
he was surrounded with splendor.
Like the bow which appears in the clouds on a rainy day
was the splendor that surrounded him.
Such was the vision of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 148:1-2, 11-12, 13, 14
R. Heaven and earth are filled with your glory.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights;
Praise him, all you his angels;
praise him, all you his hosts.
R. Heaven and earth are filled with your glory.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Let the kings of the earth and all peoples,
the princes and all the judges of the earth,
Young men too, and maidens,
old men and boys,
R. Heaven and earth are filled with your glory.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
His majesty is above earth and heaven.
R. Heaven and earth are filled with your glory.
or:
R. Alleluia.
And he has lifted up the horn of his people.
Be this his praise from all his faithful ones,
from the children of Israel, the people close to him.
Alleluia.
R. Heaven and earth are filled with your glory.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Gospel
Mt 17:22-27
As Jesus and his disciples were gathering in Galilee,
Jesus said to them,
“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men,
and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.”
And they were overwhelmed with grief.
When they came to Capernaum,
the collectors of the temple tax approached Peter and said,
“Does not your teacher pay the temple tax?”
“Yes,” he said.
When he came into the house, before he had time to speak,
Jesus asked him, “What is your opinion, Simon?
From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax?
From their subjects or from foreigners?”
When he said, “From foreigners,” Jesus said to him,
“Then the subjects are exempt.
But that we may not offend them, go to the sea, drop in a hook,
and take the first fish that comes up.
Open its mouth and you will find a coin worth twice the temple tax.
Give that to them for me and for you.”
Readings from the Jerusalem Bible
First reading Ezekiel 1:2 – 28
On the fifth of the month – it was the fifth year of exile for King Jehoiachin – the word of the Lord was addressed to the priest Ezekiel son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldaeans, on the bank of the river Chebar.
There the hand of the Lord came on me. I looked; a stormy wind blew from the north, a great cloud with light around it, a fire from which flashes of lightning darted, and in the centre a sheen like bronze at the heart of the fire. In the centre I saw what seemed four animals. I heard the noise of their wings as they moved; it sounded like rushing water, like the voice of Shaddai, a noise like a storm, like the noise of a camp; when they halted, they folded their wings, and there was a noise.
Above the vault over their heads was something that looked like a sapphire; it was shaped like a throne and high up on this throne was a being that looked like a man. I saw him shine like bronze, and close to and all around him from what seemed his loins upwards was what looked like fire; and from what seemed his loins downwards I saw what looked like fire, and a light all round like a bow in the clouds on rainy days; that is how the surrounding light appeared. It was something that looked like the glory of the Lord.
Responsorial Psalm:
Psalm 148:1-2,11-14
Your glory fills all heaven and earth.
or
Alleluia!
Praise the Lord from the heavens,
praise him in the heights.
Praise him, all his angels,
praise him, all his host.
Your glory fills all heaven and earth.
or
Alleluia!
All earth’s kings and peoples,
earth’s princes and rulers,
young men and maidens,
old men together with children.
Your glory fills all heaven and earth.
or
Alleluia!
Let them praise the name of the Lord
for he alone is exalted.
The splendour of his name
reaches beyond heaven and earth.
Your glory fills all heaven and earth.
or
Alleluia!
He exalts the strength of his people.
He is the praise of all his saints,
of the sons of Israel,
of the people to whom he comes close.
Your glory fills all heaven and earth.
or
Alleluia!
Gospel Matthew 17:22 – 27
One day when they were together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be handed over into the power of men; they will put him to death, and on the third day he will be raised to life again.’ And a great sadness came over them.
When they reached Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel came to Peter and said, ‘Does your master not pay the half-shekel?’ ‘Oh yes’ he replied, and went into the house. But before he could speak, Jesus said, ‘Simon, what is your opinion? From whom do the kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their sons or from foreigners?’ And when he replied, ‘From foreigners’, Jesus said, ‘Well then, the sons are exempt. However, so as not to offend these people, go to the lake and cast a hook; take the first fish that bites, open its mouth and there you will find a shekel; take it and give it to them for me and for you.’
Readings and Commentary from the Navarre Bible
19th Week in Ordinary Time
From: Ezekiel 1:2-5, 24-28c
Introduction
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[2] On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin), [3] the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was upon him there.
Ezekiel's vision of the glory of the Lord
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[4] As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud, with brightness round about it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming bronze. [5] And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures." And this was their appearance: they had the form of men.
[24] And when they went, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the thunder of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of a host; when they stood still, they let down their wings. [25] And there came a voice from above the firmament over their heads; when they stood still, they let down their wings.
[26] And above the firmament over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness as it were of a human form. [27] And upward from what had the appearance of his loins I saw as it were gleaming bronze, like the appearance of fire enclosed round about; and downward from what had the appearance of his loins I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness round about him. [28] Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about.
Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.
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Commentary:
1:1-3. As is usual in the prophetical books, the heading identifies the author and indicates when and where he exercised his ministry. Ezekiel was a priest, and there is evidence of this throughout the book -- for example, in the stress he puts on precepts to do with divine worship and in his frequent use of the teaching techniques used by people who held temple positions.
"The thirtieth year": this seems to provide the key to dating Ezekiel's ministry, but it is not easy to decide how this should be interpreted. It could be a reference to the prophet's age at the start of his mission, as if he were to say, "when I was thirty years old," or it could be a reference to when the theophany that he is about to describe (vv. 2-3) occurred. Since that in fact happened in 593 BC (see below), the thirty years would refer to the period of time that had elapsed since that event. He could mean that he had the visions thirty years after the finding of the book of Deuteronomy in 622 BC, in the time of King Josiah (cf. 2 Kings 22:1-23:30), or that he was thirty. From Origen onwards ("Homilae in Ezechielem", 1, 4), most scholars take it that the reference is to the age of Ezekiel at the time. Thirty was an important age for a priest, because that was when he began to exercise a priest's duties in the temple (cf. Num 4:23, 30), and it is probable that that was the point when Ezekiel received the word of the Lord and began his prophetical ministry. Jesus, too, was "about thirty years of age" (Lk 3:23) when he began his public ministry; and the Fathers point out the parallel: "When he was thirty years old, the heavens were opened and Ezekiel the prophet saw visions of God on the banks of the river Chebar. When he was thirty years old, our Lord travelled to the Jordan; the heavens were opened and the Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and a voice cried out from heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (St Gregory the Great, "Homiliae in Ezechielem prophetam", 1,2, 5).
Verses 2-3 are in the third person, unlike the rest of the passage, which is in the first person singular. They specify the date of the start of Ezekiel's ministry, "the first year of the exile of King Jehoiachin", that is, 593 BC, for that first deportation took place in 597 (cf. 2 Kings 24:10-17). These two verses giving the prophet's name and the year when his ministry began were probably added by a later author.
The Chebar is a tributary of the Euphrates; archaeological remains have been discovered on its banks which show that there was a Jewish settlement there from the sixth century BC on. By mentioning the location twice, the text wants to make it clear that the theophany or vision took place outside the land of Israel, in Babylon, and that, therefore, the Lord had remained with his followers even when they were living among the Gentiles, in a pagan and unclean land.
The fact that Ezekiel has a prophet's role is conveyed by the use of two wordings. The first, "the word of the Lord came to (him)", occurs in many other prophetical books (Hos 1:1; Joel 1:1; etc.); the second, "the hand of the Lord was upon him" (cf. 3:22; 8:1; 33:22; 37:1; 40:1) is used more in connexion with the early non-writer prophets, specifically those in the time of Elijah (1 Kings 18:46). Thus, Ezekiel is being depicted as a person of great importance, a priest by descent, a true defender of the faith like Elijah, and a prophet like his immediate predecessors.
1:4-3:27. This fairly homogenous section introduces the two protagonists of the book -- God and the prophet. God reveals himself in all his majesty in a remarkable theophany: Ezekiel is able to see the splendour of his glory (1:4-28). The prophet is depicted as the person entrusted with the Lord's words and charged with passing them on to the people (2:1-3:15). Ezekiel is made a watchman; he must warn the people and look out for them at all times, no matter what it takes: "What did Ezekiel do to prompt my admiration? Having been ordered to accuse Jerusalem of her sins, he set his heart wholly on obedience to the Lord's command and paid no heed to the persecution he might encounter because of his preaching" (Origen, "Homiliae in Ezechielem", 6, 1).
1:4-28. This is an awesome vision. The prophet watches in amazement as he sees the throne arrive (v. 26), on which is seated "a likeness as it were of a human form", which becomes "the likeness of the glory of the Lord" (v. 28). The "glory of the Lord" is something that cannot be described. What can one say? It is like "gleaming bronze" (v. 4), "like burning coals of fire, like torches" (v. 13), "like sapphire" (v. 26) etc.; human language is at a complete loss to describe the grandeur of God's glory. The account of the vision shows that God stands above everything; he is ineffable. St Cyril of Jerusalem puts it this way: "Do you want to know why it is impossible to understand the nature of God? [...] Tell me about the cherubim [...]. In so far as it is possible, the prophet Ezekiel offered a description of them: each one had four faces: the faces of a man, of a lion, of an eagle, and of a bull [...]. If we cannot form a clear idea of the cherubim, even with the help of this prophetic description; if we cannot make out the image of the throne as the prophet has described it, how can we expect to understand the one seated on the throne, the invisible and ineffable God? It is impossible for us to comprehend who God is; but by seeing all his works, it is possible for us to praise and worship him" (Catecheses ad illuminandos, 9, 3).
The various elements in the account leave us in no doubt as to the splendour of the vision, but the details given about each are difficult to understand. Many commentators think that the details were added much later, in an attempt to adapt the vision to the traditions of divine worship -- for example, to identify the thron of the glory of the Lord with the carriage that was used for bearing the ark of the Covenant solemn processions. Certainly, each piece of the vision must have a meaning, though it may sometimes escape us.
Wind, cloud and fire (cf. v. 4) accompany great theophanies, such that of Sinai (Ex 19:16-20; Ps 18:9-15, 29:3-10); here they serve to emphasize the heavenly nature of the vision ("the heavens were opened": v. 1).
"The likeness of four living creatures" (v. 5): the Hebrew word hayot, used for these, indicates that they are not domestic animals or wild beasts, but mythological beings of the sort often represented in Assyrian art. In Ezekiel the number four means fullness (the idea must derive from the four cardinal points--north, south, east, west): the four creatures have four wings each, and four faces, and each of them has a wheel so that they can move in any four directions (vv. 15-17). The creatures are unlike any known creature, for sometimes they are treated masculine, and sometimes as feminine; sometimes the verb is in the singular, sometimes in the plural. In some way, they symbolize all living things, humans and beasts, created to show, in what they are and what they do, the glory of God in all its splendour. Almost from the beginning, Christian exegesis (cf. St lrenaeus, "Adversus haereses", 3, 11, 18) interpreted the four animals (cf. v. 10) as symbolizing the four evangelists: "Because he begins his Gospel with an account of the human genealogy [of the Lord], Matthew is symbolized by the man; Mark is symbolized by the lion because he begins with a loud cry in the desert: Luke is symbolized by the bull because his book begins with a sacrifice; John is the eagle because his first focus is on the divinity of the Word [... ]: in trying to see into the heart of the divine he is like the eagle that stares into the sun" (St Gregory the Great, "Homiliae in Ezechielem prophetam", 1, 4, 1).
The "wheels" (vv. 15-21) suggest a war chariot, but they have extraordinary feaures and operate as if they were alive: they are "full of eyes" (v. 18) and "the spirit of the living creatures was in (them)" (v. 20). They symbolize all inanimate creation -- a dimension of creation which, like man, is designed to reveal the greatness of the glory of God. The "firmament" (v. 22), in Semitic cosmology, was a huge, solid plate separating the upper waters from those below; rain resulted when God opened trapdoors in this plate (cf. Gen 1:6-8). But the firmament also acted as a divide between heaven and earth; below it, creatures lived their lives; above it, God lived his. Therefore, the things depicted here as being above the firmament (vv. 24-28) have to do with God: the voice, the sapphire throne, the fire, etc. are all manifestations of divine majesty.
The "glory of God" forms the centre of the vision: all the other details are meant to underscore the splendour of that glory. In Ezekiel, as in the Priestly tradition (cf. Ex 13:22; 24:16; 40:35; Lev 9:23-24), the "glory of God" means the presence of God, who rules over all that he has created and is active among them. When the glory of God is present, the people are safe, and things go well; when it is withdrawn, it is a sign that the very worst will happen. Ezekiel records that the vision comes to him as a "likeness" ("demut" in the Hebrew, as in Genesis 1:26) of the glory of God. So, St Cyril of Jerusalem makes the point that "The prophet saw the likeness of the glory of God (Ezek 1:28); he did not see the Lord, but only the likeness of his glory; he did not even see the glory itself, as it really is, but only its likeness. And yet, though he saw only the likeness of the glory of the Lord, the prophet was so moved that he fell to the ground. If so great a man as the prophet falls to the ground and trembles in the presence of the likeness of the Lord's glory, any man who tries to see God as he really is will surely die. And Scripture tells us so: No man shall see the face of God and live" (Catechesis ad lluminandos, 9, 1).
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From: Matthew 17:22-27
Second Prophecy of the Passion; the Temple Tax
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[22] As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, "The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, [23] and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day." And they were greatly distressed.
[24] When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel tax went up to Peter and said, "Does not your Teacher pay the tax?" 25] He said, "Yes." And when he came home, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, "What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their sons or from others?" [26] And when he said, "From others," Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are free. [27] However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel; take that and give to them for Me and for yourself."
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Commentary:
24-27. "Half-shekel", or "didrachma": a coin equal in value to the annual contribution every Jew had to make for the upkeep of the temple--a day's wage of a laborer. The shekel or stater which our Lord refers to in verse 27 was a Greek coin worth two didrachmas.
Jesus uses things great and small to get His teaching across to His disciples. Peter, who is to be the rock on which He will found His Church (Matthew 16:18-19), He prepares by letting him see His dramatic Transfiguration (17:1-8); now He gives Peter another inkling of His divinity through an apparently unimportant miracle. We should take note of Jesus' teaching method: after His second announcement of His passion, His disciples are downhearted (Matthew 17:22-23); here He lifts Peter's spirits with this friendly little miracle.
26. This shows how conscientiously our Lord fulfilled His civic duties. Although the half-shekel tax had to do with religion, given the theocratic structure of Israel at the time, payment of this tax also constituted a civic obligation.
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase
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