The Bible continually references how God has acted in the past to understand what is happening in the present, and what will happen in the future. And those memories are long. Ezekiel invokes King David as the coming prince who will shepherd the people of God. He reminds the people that their inheritance is from Jacob. Even in Ezekiel’s time these were anique figures — five hundred and twelve hundred years before him, respectively. To put it in contemporary categories it was as if he were claiming figures from the time of Henry VIII or Charlemagne had something to tell us. Our culture has a “recency bias” — only modern things seem relevant. Perhaps we need to adopt a Biblical perspective and see the hand of God in the long arc of history challenging us to create a more just and peaceful society.
