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Ezekiel Sealed the Promise Moses Sang on the Plains of Moab

Moses sang about divine arrows drunk with blood on the edge of Canaan. Six centuries later, Ezekiel announced that the day Moses described had finally arrived.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Song That Was Still Waiting
  2. The Referent of a Pronoun
  3. The Angels Who Attended the Exile
  4. The Transgression That Made the Vision Necessary

The Song That Was Still Waiting

On the last day he would ever stand on Israelite soil, Moses opened his mouth and sang about blood. Not about liberation, not about the covenant, not about the land he could see from the ridge but would never enter. He sang about divine arrows drunk with blood, about swords gorging themselves on the flesh of the slain, about a day of reckoning that had not come yet but was fixed as firmly as Sinai.

The Song of Moses, Deuteronomy chapter 32, is one of the most ferocious poems in the Hebrew Bible. The wilderness generation was dead. The new generation stood before the Jordan. And Moses, instead of a gentle blessing, gave them a warning encoded in verse, its fulfillment left open and waiting like a blade sheathed but not put away.

Six centuries passed. Then Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon, opened his mouth and said: Behold, it has come. It has arrived. This is the day of which I spoke.

The Referent of a Pronoun

The Mekhilta, the tannaitic commentary on Exodus from the school of Rabbi Ishmael, edited in the Land of Israel around the early third century CE, was not content to let the word spoke go unexamined. When Ezekiel said the day of which I spoke, who was speaking? Ezekiel had never before made this announcement. The I pointed backward across six centuries to someone else's words.

The Mekhilta traces it to Deuteronomy 32:42: I will make My arrows drunk with blood. The speaker of that line is God, speaking through Moses. Ezekiel 39:8, this is the day of which I spoke, completes the sentence Moses had opened. Moses issued the prophecy. Ezekiel announced its arrival.

This is not coincidence. It is architecture. The tradition understood prophecy not as a sequence of separate utterances from different mouths across different centuries, but as a single long sentence with God as its subject and the prophets as its punctuation.

The Angels Who Attended the Exile

Vayikra Rabbah, the fifth-century Palestinian midrash on Leviticus, extends the connection between Moses and Ezekiel through a different register. When Ezekiel was carried into Babylon with the exile, he was not alone. The divine presence accompanied him. This is explicit in the opening vision: the heavens opened over a foreign canal, the wheels turned over foreign soil, the throne appeared where no temple stood. Exile did not break the connection between God and Israel. It relocated the throne.

The same text notes that Ezekiel received angelic assistance. The creatures of the vision were not merely spectacle. They were the mechanism by which divine speech moved through a broken world. Where Moses had the mountain and the cloud, Ezekiel had the canal and the storm. The apparatus was different. The transmission was the same.

The Transgression That Made the Vision Necessary

Ezekiel's relationship to the prophetic tradition was not without its complications. The rabbis noted that he had described the divine in terms no earlier prophet had dared use so explicitly. The chariot, the wheels, the fire, the man-shaped figure on the throne: all of this was, by later standards, extremely sensitive material.

The tradition preserved a sharp rabbinic objection to Ezekiel's candor: he had revealed in the marketplace what Moses had only whispered in secret. Moses had seen clearly and said little. Ezekiel had seen through nine clouded panes and filled pages. Some rabbis thought this was a violation of prophetic restraint, a kind of recklessness in the face of the holy.

But another strand of the tradition ran the opposite direction. Ezekiel's recklessness was Ezekiel's mercy. The exiles by the Chebar Canal had lost everything visible: the Temple, the priesthood, the daily sacrifices, the pilgrimage festivals, the altar smoke. What they had not lost, what Ezekiel was at pains to make undeniable, was the presence. It had followed them. It was there. The excessive description was not boasting. It was testimony given under conditions where testimony was the only thing keeping the community alive.

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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Mekhilta Tractate Pischa 12:17Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael

The prophet Ezekiel delivered an oracle of terrifying certainty: "Behold, it has come; it has arrived, says the Lord God. This is the day of which I spoke" (Ezekiel 39:8). But when had God originally spoken of this day? The Mekhilta traces the promise back to the Song of Moses, one of the most ancient and ferocious poems in the Torah: "I will make My arrows drunk with blood" (Deuteronomy 32:42).

The connection is electrifying. The Song of Moses, recited on the plains of Moab as Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land, contains some of the most vivid images of divine warfare in all of Scripture. Arrows drunk with blood. A sword that devours flesh. Vengeance against those who hate God's people. Ezekiel, centuries later, pointed back to that song and declared: the day Moses sang about has finally arrived.

For the rabbis of the Mekhilta, this was proof that prophecy operates as a single continuous thread. Moses planted words in the Torah that would germinate across centuries, sprouting in the mouths of later prophets. Ezekiel did not invent a new prophecy. He fulfilled an old one. The "day of which I spoke" was not Ezekiel's day. It was God's day, first announced through Moses and held in reserve until the moment was right. Scripture, the Mekhilta insists, is not a collection of separate books. It is one unfolding revelation, each prophet picking up where the last one left off.

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Vayikra Rabbah 1:14Vayikra Rabbah

A debate between Rabbi Yehuda ben Rabbi Ilai and other, unnamed Rabbis, focusing on the clarity of prophetic vision. Rabbi Yehuda uses the prophet Ezekiel as his example. In (Ezekiel 43:3), we find the words "appearance," "vision," and "saw" repeated, along with the plural "visions," adding up to nine separate instances. Rabbi Yehuda argues that these repetitions allude to the other prophets seeing their prophecies as if looking through nine layers of glass – a bit like looking through multiple layers of distortion.

Moses? Ah, Moses saw through just one, clear looking glass, as the verse states in (Numbers 12:8): “And a vision and not in riddles.”

The Rabbis, however, offer a slightly different take. They suggest that all the other prophets saw through a murky looking glass. As (Hosea 12:11) says, “I spoke to the prophets; I proliferated visions and granted imagery to the prophets.” These visions were somehow clouded, less direct. But Moses, according to this interpretation, saw through a polished looking glass. Again, the proof text is (Numbers 12:8): “And a vision and not in riddles.”

Rabbi Pinḥas, quoting Rabbi Hoshaya, adds a beautiful analogy. It's like a king who reveals himself fully to a member of his inner circle, without any curtains or veils obscuring the view. This direct, unmediated experience was unique to Moses.

So, what does this all mean? It suggests that while all prophets were able to perceive the Divine, Moses had a uniquely clear, unadulterated connection. His understanding was not filtered through layers of interpretation or obscured by murkiness. He saw directly, without the need for riddles or intermediaries.

And here’s a thought to ponder: This Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) also hints at a future time when this clarity won't be limited to a select few. "The glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see together that the mouth of the Lord has spoken," as (Isaiah 40:5) promises. Imagine a world where the Divine Presence is not just available to prophets, but is revealed to everyone. A world where we all see with that same clarity that Moses possessed. Wouldn't that be something?

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Legends of the Jews 1:68Legends of the Jews

It wasn't just the adults celebrating freedom. According to Legends of the Jews, even babies stopped nursing, compelled to add their voices to the chorus! And unbelievably, the embryos still nestled safely in their mothers' wombs joined in the melody, their tiny voices swelling the song alongside the angels. Can you even fathom the power of that sound?

The text emphasizes that God singled out Israel during this pivotal moment. So much so, it says, that even the children witnessed God's glory in a way that surpassed even the Prophet Ezekiel's visions. Even a simple woman slave, standing on those shores, experienced a more profound glimpse of the divine than one of the greatest prophets. What an incredible evidence of the power of that moment.

What did they sing? It was a hymn praising their Deliverer. "Let us set the crown of glory upon the head of our Deliverer, who suffers all things to perish, but does not Himself decay, who changes all things, but is Himself unchanged." This Deliverer, the text proclaims, holds the "diadem of sovereignty," for He is the King of kings, not just in this world, but also in the world to come. This sovereignty is His, forever and always.

After this powerful song, Moses, ever the teacher, reminds the people that what they’ve witnessed is just a glimpse of what awaits. "Ye have seen all the signs, all miracles and works of glory that the Holy One, blessed be He, hath wrought for you, but even more will He do for you in the world to come." He contrasts this world with the next: "For not like unto this world is the world of the hereafter; for in this world war and suffering, evil inclination, Satan, and the Angel of Death hold sway; but in the future would, there will be neither suffering nor enmity, neither Satan nor the Angel of Death, neither groans nor oppression, nor evil inclination."

It’s a powerful message of hope. A promise that the freedom they experienced at the Red Sea was just the beginning. That a world free from suffering, from Satan (the adversary) and the Malach ha-Mavet (Angel of Death), awaits.

So, what does this ancient story tell us today? Perhaps it's a reminder that even in our darkest moments, moments of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, there is always the potential for transformation, for freedom, and for a glimpse of something beyond our current reality. And maybe, just maybe, if we listen closely enough, we can hear the echoes of that ancient song, the song of the unborn, still resonating within us, urging us towards a future filled with hope and redemption.

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Vayikra Rabbah 27:3Vayikra Rabbah

A song, a smell, a place... and suddenly you're right back there, feeling the weight of it all over again. Jewish tradition is keenly aware of this power of association, and how easily we can be reminded of past sins.

Rabbi Yaakov bar Zavdi opens with a powerful image from the prophet Ezekiel: "It will no longer be a guarantor for the house of Israel, evoking iniquity" (Ezekiel 29:16). This verse, in its original context, speaks about Egypt's downfall, but the Rabbis, in Vayikra Rabbah, take it as a broader principle: that relying on anything other than God – anything that evokes past sins – is a recipe for trouble.

Think about the seraphim, the fiery angels, described by Isaiah (6:2): "Seraphim were standing above Him, six wings to each one; with two it would cover its face and with two it would cover its legs and with two it would fly." They use two wings to fly, to praise God. But why cover their face? So they wouldn't gaze directly at the Divine Presence. And why cover their legs? Because, as Ezekiel (1:7) says, "Their feet were like the foot of a calf."

A calf? That's a problem! Why? Because as we all remember, the Israelites famously "crafted for themselves a molten calf" (Exodus 32:8) after fleeing Egypt. According to this midrash, the angels themselves must hide their calf-like feet, lest they evoke that terrible sin of idolatry, reminding everyone of the moment that they turned their backs on God. See how the verse from Ezekiel, "It will no longer be a guarantor... evoking iniquity," ties it all together?

It's not just angels, either. There's a teaching in the Mishna Rosh Hashanah (3:2) that all shofarot – ram's horns used for the call on Rosh Hashanah – are acceptable, except for the horn of a cow. Why? Because it's the horn of a calf. And, you guessed it, "They crafted for themselves a molten calf." That sound, meant to awaken our souls, shouldn't be tainted by the memory of that primal sin.

Even in the case of the sotah, the woman accused of adultery, we see this principle at play. Why, the tradition asks, shouldn't one sotah drink from the same cup as another? The answer: to avoid anyone saying, "So-and-so drank from this cup and died," thus evoking the sin, and the punishment, of the first woman. As the midrash says, quoting our verse from Ezekiel, “It will no longer be a guarantor for the house of Israel, evoking iniquity.” (referencing the punishment of another who drank from the cup)

And it goes on. The Mishna Sanhedrin (7:4) teaches us about the punishment for bestiality: "If a woman approaches any animal so that it will copulate with her, you shall kill the woman and the animal" (Leviticus 20:16). But why the animal? What did it do wrong? The answer: to prevent the animal from becoming a constant reminder of the sin. We don't want people pointing and saying, "That's the animal because of which so-and-so was stoned," again, evoking the iniquity.

Even the Torah itself seems to avoid the word "calf" when it can. When describing offerings, the Torah says "A bull, or a sheep, or a goat, when it is born..." (Leviticus 22:27). But wait, is a bull born? Isn't it a calf that's born? The midrash in Vayikra Rabbah suggests that the Torah deliberately avoids the word "calf" in this context, precisely because "They crafted for themselves a molten calf." It's a subtle, but powerful, way of avoiding that painful memory.

What does all this tell us? It reveals a profound understanding of human psychology. We are creatures of memory, and certain images, sounds, and objects can trigger powerful associations. The tradition recognizes the importance of creating a spiritual environment that minimizes the risk of being dragged back into past sins. It's not about erasing the past, but about preventing it from becoming a stumbling block on our path to repentance and growth. It's a powerful reminder that even seemingly small details can have a profound impact on our spiritual well-being. What are the "calves" in our own lives, and how can we create space from them?

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