I’m reading through Ezekiel at the moment in parallel with a series we’re doing at our church. I’ve taken Robert Jenson’s commentary on Ezekiel in the Brazos series along for the ride (I picked it up for $5 at Koorong). I’ve been working through his Systematic Theology with some friends over the course of the year as well. I start from different presuppositions than Jenson, which means I don’t always like his reasoning or conclusions. But he’s becoming a good friend on the journey through Ezekiel.
From his commentary on Ezekiel 5:5-17 –
Modernity expected God to be disinterested; and if a judge, then a disinterested judge, on the model of one behind the bench of a British or American courtroom. But the biblical God is precisely not disinterested; his boundless personal investment in his creatures is his most determining characteristic. His law is not something he devises and administers, it is his active personal will, which thus defines also who and what he himself is. And therefore when it is flouted he must be personally offended. He is a lover and therefore jealous, for there cannot be an actual lover who is not jealous – the great climax of the Song of Songs, “love is strong as death, jealousy fierce as the grave,” (Song 8:6) strictly and knowingly parallels love and jealousy. Christian theology dare not retreat a step from these claims, for as the gospel construes our situation, our only hope is God’s personal stake in the good he wills for us.
Robert Jenson, Ezekiel, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press), 63.