Ezekiel Chapter 4: African American Parallels

Symbolic Warnings of Inescapable Judgment

In Ezekiel chapters 4, the prophet enacts symbolic actions that serve as performative prophecies. These acts do not merely predict the future but actively participate in bringing it about. This concept of performative prophecy is evident in the African American tradition, where spirituals functioned as “coded prophetic warnings” operating on two levels: a surface meaning acceptable to slaveholders and a hidden meaning that announced hope for liberation and escape (Teachers Institute, 2026).

The Brick of Jerusalem and the Siege (Ezekiel 4:1-3)

Context: God commands Ezekiel to draw a map of Jerusalem on a clay brick, build miniature siege works against it, and then set an iron pan between himself and the city. He is to lie on his side facing the model for a total of 430 days, bearing their punishment.

African American Parallel: This act parallels the ways Black existence in America has been a lived, bodily “siege.” The iron pan represents the unbreakable barrier of segregation and racism, a divine decree of separation for a time. The prolonged bearing of the posture mirrors the centuries-long burden of systemic oppression. It is not just talked about; it is physically endured. Think of the sit-ins at lunch counters, a silent, physical enactment of protest against the “iron pan” of segregation, embodying the demand for justice through vulnerable presence.

Bearing the Iniquity (Ezekiel 4:4-8)

Context: Ezekiel is told, “I assign you the years of their iniquity.” His body becomes a living ledger, bearing the consequence of the nation’s sin for a prescribed time. The left/right side positions may symbolize the Northern and Southern kingdoms.

African American Parallel: This speaks directly to the concept of Black people bearing the weight of America’s original sin. The doctrine of white supremacy and the economic foundation of slavery created a national “iniquity.” While the oppressor was often in denial, the oppressed community bore its physical, economic, and psychological consequences generationally. The prophet/community embodies the cost of the nation’s moral failure.

The Siege Rations: Defiled Bread (Ezekiel 4:9-17)

Context: God commands Ezekiel to survive on a meager, measured diet of a coarse grain mixture, cooked over human dung. This violates priestly purity laws, symbolizing the defiled, desperate conditions of exile and famine. After Ezekiel’s protest, God concedes to allow cow dung as fuel.

African American Parallel: This is the scarcity and innovation of survival cuisine. The meager, mixed grains find a direct parallel in the creation of soul food. Enslaved Africans were given the poorest rations, the leftovers, scraps, and coarse grains. From this “siege diet,” they innovated sustaining and culturally rich dishes. The “defilement” angle parallels how Black life and culture were deemed “unclean” or inferior by the dominant society, yet became a source of sacred sustenance and identity. The negotiation over the fuel (dung) speaks to the small, hard-won concessions within an oppressive system.

The Measured Water and Trembling Fear (Ezekiel 4:16-17)

Context: Water, too, is rationed. God says the people will eat and drink “with anxiety and dread” because of the coming destruction.

African American Parallel: This reflects the constant insecurity and measured survival under systems of control. From the careful rationing during slavery to the economic precarity of sharecropping and redlining, the ability to secure basic sustenance has always been fraught with “anxiety and dread.” It also speaks to the thirst for justice, a fundamental need met only in carefully measured, insufficient drops by the system.

Overall Parallel: Prophetic Embodiment

Ezekiel 4 isn’t about preaching; it’s about being a living, suffering sign. The African American parallel is found in:

• The hunger strikes of civil rights activists.
• The physical endurance of marchers facing violence.
• The Black body itself as a site of protest and testimony, from auction blocks to Colin Kaepernick taking a knee.
• The cultural alchemy of turning “siege rations” (soul food, blues music) into a cuisine and art form of profound depth.

This chapter illustrates that, for a community in exile, prophecy is often a physical, grueling, and deeply embodied act of bearing witness to the truth of their condition and to the judgment on their captors.

Recommended Reading

Cone, J. H. (1972). A Black Theology of Liberation. Orbis Books.

Joyce, J. M. (2007). VIII—Epistemic Deference: The Case of Chance. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 107(1_pt_2), 187–206.

Lawrence-McIntyre, C. (1987). The Double Meanings of the Spirituals. Journal of Black Studies, 17(4), 379–401.

Teachers Institute. (2026). Our songs, our story: From spirituals to hip-hop- the use of music in the African-American culture. Available from https://theteachersinstitute.org/curriculum_unit/our-songs-our-story-from-spirituals-to-hip-hop-the-use-of-music-in-the-african-american-culture/?utm_source=openai

Ezekiel Chapter 3: African American Parallels

“Stunned for Seven Days”

Margaret Odell (2005) analyzes Ezekiel’s seven-day period of stupor (Ezekiel 3:15) as a phase of traumatic absorption and preparation. She asserts that the seven days of sitting “stunned” (shamem) among the exiles is not merely passive waiting, but is a state of shock, desolation, and profound internalization. This period represents the prophet absorbing the full psychological and emotional impact of the bitter-sweet scroll he has just ingested and the devastating vision he has witnessed.

Odell connects this stupor to the “burden” of the prophetic word. The seven days are the necessary somatic and psychological expression of carrying a message of both doom and (eventual) hope before being able to articulate it publicly. She frames this time as a critical preparatory phase in which Ezekiel is effectively “overwhelmed into silence” by the divine word, thereby solidifying his identification with the people to whom he is sent. The public ministry (beginning with the “watchman” speech in verse 16) emerges from this period of traumatic absorption.

Nancy Bowen’s 2010 commentary on Ezekiel provides an additional exegetical foundation for understanding the prophet’s muteness and binding as theological sign-acts demonstrating that prophetic speech is governed solely by God’s timing and purpose. Bowen interprets Ezekiel’s intermittent muteness (Ezekiel 3:24–27; 33:21–22) as a state where the prophet’s speech is entirely under divine control; he speaks only when God opens his mouth. She also interprets Ezekiel’s being “bound with ropes” by his own people (Ezekiel 3:25) as a literal symbol of the social and psychological pressure used to silence challenging truth-tellers from within (Bowen, 2010).

While Bowen does not explicitly apply this framework to the Black radical tradition, the parallel is striking. For the historical context of how figures like Malcolm X and the early Black Panthers were systematically silenced, a complementary source is James H. Cone’s Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare (Johnson, 1991). Cone suggests that Malcolm X’s voice was “bound” by media distortion, political ostracism, and even internal community resistance, and how he understood his own speech as a divinely compelled truth breaking through a forced silence (Johnson, 1991).

Reference

Bowen, N. R. (2010). Ezekiel. Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries. Abingdon Press.

Cone, J. H. (1991). Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. Orbis Books.

Johnson, C. (February 12, 1991) Book review: Well-rounded look at two Black heroes : Martin & Malcolm & America: A dream or a nightmare by James H. Cone. Orbis Books.

Odell, M. S. (2005). Ezekiel. Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary. Smyth & Helwys.

Resonance of Ezekiel’s Prophetic Identity with Black Prophetic Witness

The book of Ezekiel presents a prophet whose identity is shaped by shared humanity, vulnerability, internal critique, and the burden of warning. These themes, while rooted in the historical context of the Babylonian exile, have found powerful resonance in Black theological readings that see Ezekiel as a model for prophetic witness within suffering communities. The following sections draw on Sweeney’s Ezekiel: A Literary and Theological Commentary (2013), which provides a careful exegesis of key passages.

Eating the Bitter-Sweet Scroll

The vision of eating the scroll (Ezekiel 3:1–3) symbolizes the prophet’s internalization of God’s word, both its judgment (“bitter”) and its divine authority (“sweet”). Sweeney (2013) comments that the scroll tastes sweet; however, its content contains a message of lament, mourning, and woe. The prophet must fully ingest the painful truth before speaking it.

This image has been used in Black preaching and theology to describe how prophetic voices must first absorb the bitter history of racial terror and divine judgment, transforming it into the “sweet” fuel of unshakeable conviction. The metaphor is well recognized in homiletics. Gardner C. Taylor, renowned as the “Dean of Black Preachers,” was celebrated for his prophetic preaching that confronted societal injustices, including racial discrimination. His sermons often exposed the sin of racism and called for repentance, blending sharp critique with hope and grace. In his book Faith in the Fire: Wisdom for Life, Taylor reflects on enduring trials and the importance of patience, emphasizing that while we are called to face “bitter trials,” patience involves active waiting, especially during difficult times (Taylor, 2011). Additionally, in African American Preaching: The Contribution of Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, Gerald Lamont Thomas provides a historical overview of African American preaching, highlighting Taylor’s significant role in the cultural legacy of Black preaching (Thomas, 2007). While specific references to the metaphor of transforming the “bitter” into the “sweet” are not readily available in these sources, the themes of confronting and transcending adversity are central to Taylor’s preaching and the broader tradition of Black homiletics.

 For a direct womanist engagement with prophetic internalization, see Wilda Gafney (2017), which reads prophetic texts with attention to embodied suffering and community accountability. In her work, Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (2017), Gafney engages with prophetic internalization by reading prophetic texts with attention to embodied suffering and community accountability. Gafney’s approach is rooted in womanist biblical interpretation, which emphasizes the experiences and perspectives of Black women, focusing on themes of power, authority, voice, agency, hierarchy, inclusion, and exclusion. This perspective aligns with the metaphor of transforming the “bitter” into the “sweet,” as it highlights the process of internalizing and reinterpreting suffering to fuel conviction and action (Gaffney, 2017).

References

Gafney, W. (2017). Womanist Midrash: A reintroduction to the women of the Torah and the throne. Westminster John Knox Press.

Taylor, G. C. (2011). Faith in the fire: Wisdom for life (Rev. ed.). Hay House.

Thomas, G. L. (2007). African American preaching: The contribution of Dr. Gardner C. Taylor. University Press of America.

The Watchman’s Burden

The watchman metaphor (Ezekiel 3:16–21; 33:1–9) establishes the prophet’s ethical responsibility to warn, regardless of reception. Sweeney (2013) explains that “the watchman is accountable for delivering the warning, not for whether the people heed it.” This creates a burden of unavoidable speech.

Black prophetic figures such as Ida B. Wells (anti-lynching), Fannie Lou Hamer (voting rights), and Martin Luther King Jr. (in his later, radical phase) embody this burden: they spoke judgment on a nation knowing they might be rejected. For scholarly treatments of King’s later prophetic critique, see James H. Cone, Martin & Malcolm & America (1991), and for Wells as a prophet, see Emilie M. Townes, Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil (2006). The Ezekiel watchman framework can be constructively applied to these figures, even if no single source has done so with the level of detail described in earlier claims.

References

Gafney, W. (2017). Womanist midrash: A reintroduction to the women of the Torah and the throne. Westminster John Knox.

Cone, J. H. (1991). Martin & Malcolm & America: A dream or a nightmare. Orbis Books.

Townes, E. M. (2006). Womanist ethics and the cultural production of evil. Palgrave Macmillan.

Sweeney, M. A. (2013). Reading Ezekiel: A Literary and Theological Commentary. Smyth & Helwys.

Ezekiel Chapter 2: African American Parallels

“Son of Man” in Exile

In his 2013 commentary, Ezekiel: A Literary and Theological Commentary, M. A. Sweeney interprets the prophet’s title “Son of Man” (ben ‘adam) as emphasizing his shared humanity and vulnerability within the exiled community. This linguistic point establishes that the prophet’s authority is not derived from royal or priestly privilege but from his membership in the suffering people. This perspective aligns with the Black prophetic tradition, where leaders emerge from and are deeply connected to the communities they serve.

 Sweeney’s commentary further discusses Ezekiel’s role as a “watchman” to the exiles (Sweeney, 2013), emphasizing the prophet’s responsibility to warn the people of impending judgment. He further examines the symbolic acts required of Ezekiel, such as lying on his side and eating defiled bread, which serve to illustrate the fate of the people. Ezekiel’s prophetic identity is thus one of vulnerability: he is called to embody the fate of his people through symbolic acts such as lying on his side and eating defiled bread (Ezekiel 4–5), thereby physically enacting that fate (Sweeney, 2013).

Ezekiel’s commission to a “rebellious house” (Ezekiel 2:3, 3:9) entails a dual critique: confronting both the external oppressor (Babylon) and Israel’s internal failures (idolatry, despair, moral compromise). Sweeney (2013) suggests that the phrase “rebellious house” shapes the prophet’s task, requiring him to speak truth to power and also to call his own community to account.

While Sweeney does not directly apply these ideas to Black theology, the parallel is evident: the Black prophetic voice must address both systemic injustice (white supremacy) and internal community challenges (internalized oppression, class division). This dual focus is a recurring theme in Black theological ethics, though no single scholarly source has developed it using Ezekiel’s “rebellious house” motif as explicitly as some constructive arguments suggest.

References

Sweeney, M. A. (2013). Reading Ezekiel: A literary and theological commentary. Smyth & Helwys.

Ezekiel Chapter 1: African American Parallels

Ezekiel’s Throne-Chariot and the Great Migration: A Theological Reflection

The connection between Ezekiel’s vision of the mobile throne and the Great Migration (c. 1916–1970) is profound. For millions of African Americans leaving the rural, terror-filled South for Northern and Western cities, this period was not merely a demographic shift; it was a theological exodus, an embodied search for the “Promised Land.” Ezekiel’s text provided a powerful framework for understanding their journey.

The Great Migration as Lived Eschatology: A “Chariot” Heading North

For Ezekiel, the merkabah (throne-chariot) revealed that God was not confined to the ruined Temple in Jerusalem. God’s presence could, and did, travel into the heart of Babylon. As Howard Thurman (1976) most likely would have suggested, given his theological viewpoints, this image of a mobile God was central to African American faith under oppression. The parallel to the Great Migration is direct: for sharecroppers in Mississippi and Alabama, the dominant religion of the white South often presented God as sanctifying the racial order. The Great Migration was, theologically, a rejection of that stationary god. The belief that God could be encountered in Chicago, Detroit, or Harlem and that God’s throne was mobile enough to accompany them on the Illinois Central railroad was a radical act of faith, mirroring the exilic conviction that Yahweh journeys with the captives.

The “Wheels within Wheels”: Complex, Mysterious Providence

The mechanized, mysterious movement of the wheels spoke of a divine purpose often inscrutable to those living through it. Kirk-Duggan (1997) has shown how this image functioned in the spirituals as a symbol of God’s hidden yet active sovereignty amid suffering. The Great Migration was driven by a complex interplay of push factors (lynching, Jim Crow, economic peonage) and pull factors (wartime industrial jobs, reports of less violence), as documented by Isabel Wilkerson. For migrants, the journey North was an act of both desperation and hope: a “wheel within a wheel.” The divine ruach (spirit/wind) in the wheels could be seen in inexplicable moments of grace and guidance: the stranger who offered a meal, the clandestine network of information about where to go, the sudden opportunity for work.

The “Eyes All Around”: God as Witness and Guide

For African Americans on a dangerous journey (fleeing the Klan, navigating unknown cities), the belief that “God sees me” was a survival theology. It was not merely about divine surveillance but about guidance and protection. Arthur C. Jones, a clinical psychologist and music scholar, has extensively studied African American spirituals. He founded The Spirituals Project at the University of Denver, focusing on preserving and revitalizing these sacred songs. Jones’s work (2005) highlights how spirituals articulate the conviction that God witnesses the suffering of the oppressed and acts on their behalf. While specific references to the “eyes all around” imagery in his publications are not readily available, his broader research supports the interpretation that spirituals convey themes of divine observation and protection.

African American spirituals often served as coded messages, providing guidance and hope during perilous journeys, such as escaping slavery via the Underground Railroad. Songs like “Follow the Drinking Gourd” offered directions to freedom, while others conveyed messages of divine protection and the belief that God was watching over them. This aligns with the interpretation of the “eyes all around” as a metaphor for God’s providential care.

Hence, the “eyes all around” in Ezekiel’s vision symbolize God’s omniscient presence, a theme that resonates in African American spirituals, which convey the belief in divine observation and protection during times of suffering and migration.

Movement “Without Veering”: Toward a Destination of Freedom

In Ezekiel’s account, the wheels’ ability to move straight in any direction symbolized divine purpose and unwavering intent. While the reality of the North was often disillusioning, for  Northern racism was different but pervasive, the theological narrative of the journey remained oriented toward freedom. The Migration was seen not as aimless wandering but as a collective movement toward a “new Jerusalem,” however imperfect. The “chariot” was headed toward a promised, if not fully realized, liberation from what many called the “Babylon” of the Jim Crow South.

A New “Sanctuary” in a Foreign Land

Just as Ezekiel 11:16 recast God as a “sanctuary” in exile, the migrants built new sacred and communal institutions in the North. The rapid growth of storefront churches, Black newspapers, social clubs, and civic associations was the practical outworking of the mobile throne theology. God’s presence was being reestablished in a new land through new community structures. Massive congregations like Chicago’s Olivet Baptist Church became centers of spiritual, social, and political life for the newly arrived (Wilkerson, 2010).

The Sober Counterpoint: The “Babylon” of the North

A mature theological reading must also acknowledge the disillusionment. The North proved to be another “Babylon” of segregation, redlining, and police violence. Here, Ezekiel’s vision takes on a second layer of meaning: the mobile throne means God is also present in the midst of ongoing exile. The Great Migration did not end the exile; it relocated it. The theological task became, as it was for the exiles in Babylon, how to sing the Lord’s song in this new, still-unjust land. The answer lay in the same vision: God’s throne is still mobile, still watching, and still moving toward a freedom not yet fully realized.

In sum, the Great Migration can be understood as a mass, historical enactment of Ezekiel’s throne-chariot theology. It was a journey fueled by a faith in a God who travels with the exiled, sees their suffering, guides their path through mysterious providence, and promises, through the very act of movement, a future of greater freedom. It was a story of a people, like Ezekiel, discovering that the glory of God had, in fact, left the old temple and was now moving with them on a train heading North.

References

Jones, A. C. (2005). Wade in the water: The wisdom of the spirituals (2nd ed.). Orbis Books.

Kirk-Duggan, C. A. (1997). Exorcizing evil: A womanist perspective on the spirituals. Orbis Books.

Kirk-Duggan, C. A. (2014). Womanist theology as a corrective to African American theology. In A. B. Pinn & K. G. Cannon (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of African American theology (pp. 267–279). Oxford University Press.

Thurman, H. (1976). Jesus and the disinherited. Beacon Press. (Original work published 1949)

Wilkerson, I. (2010). The warmth of other suns: The epic story of America’s great migration. Random House.

Womanist Perspectives on the Exile

by Lorrie C. Reed, M.Div., Ph.D.

Interpreting the Book of Ezekiel from an African American perspective often emphasizes themes of exile, forced displacement, racial trauma, the struggle for identity, and ultimate restoration (resurrection). Moreover, from a womanist theological perspective, I would argue that any analysis of “the African American experience” that does not explicitly attend to gender, sexuality, and the specific violences faced by Black women is incomplete and potentially oppressive in its own right. The themes of exile, prophetic witness, and liberation provide frameworks and direct parallels.

This premise, which is anchored in the African American experience, asserts that Black women have been banished from their homeland and from full personhood within both White society and Black communities shaped by patriarchy. The gendered metaphors of exile in Ezekiel 16 and 23 reinforce this notion, where Jerusalem is portrayed as an abused and exiled woman. A womanist reading might reclaim these troubling texts, not to blame the victim, but to highlight how systems of power (Babylonian, patriarchal) use sexualized violence as a tool of conquest and control. The “exile” is not just geopolitical but also bodily and spiritual.

In my opinion, the “exile” in Ezekiel symbolizes not just physical displacement but a state of spiritual and social rupture. The “inherited exile” of Black women in the United States is an exile created by the intersecting oppressions of racism, sexism, and classism, which alienate them from full belonging in society and often within religious communities.

I argue that just as Ezekiel’s prophetic dirges named the trauma of exile while holding space for hope and critique, Womanist cultural production (through literature, music, activism, and theology) similarly voices lament, resistance, and the envisioning of liberation from America’s oppressive structures. By framing Black women’s experience through the exilic narrative, womanist thought does not accept oppression as natural. Instead, it follows Ezekiel’s pattern: naming the reality of evil in order to envision and work toward a “New Jerusalem,” a community defined by justice, wholeness, and salvific hope.

Visions of Judgment and Restoration:

Parallels between the Babylonian and African American Exile Experiences

by Dr. Lorrie C. Reed, M.Div., Ph.D.

The Purpose of This Project

This project is part of a Bible study series that aims to draw parallels between the Book of Ezekiel and the African American experience in the U.S. and involves examining themes of exile, suffering, prophetic critique, and hope for restoration.

The prophetic experience of Ezekiel unfolds within the brutal reality of forced displacement following the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. The event represented a catastrophic rupture involving the loss of homeland, national identity, and, most fundamentally, the temple, the locus of divine presence and worship. It was a profound and traumatic disorientation for Ezekiel and his community, severing them from the physical and spiritual anchors of their existence.

The Babylonian exile finds a powerful analogue in the African American experience, initiated by the violence of the Middle Passage and chattel slavery. This system constituted a primary, mass exile, violently removing people from their ancestral lands, languages, and cultural frameworks, creating a diaspora defined by profound loss and alienation.

I contend that both communities experienced the profound theological insight that divine presence accompanies the oppressed in a foreign land. This realization became a cornerstone of hope for exiles in Babylon and the African diaspora.

The African American experience witnessed the development of Black theology and the institution of the Black church, which stood as a powerful testament to God’s sustaining presence amid systemic oppression. These spaces became the “sanctuary” in a hostile land, affirming that the divine was not the oppressor’s property but was instead in solidarity with the enslaved and marginalized.

Throughout African American history, prophetic voices arose to condemn the moral bankruptcy of a national system built on slavery and later Jim Crow segregation. Prophetic voices from Frederick Douglass to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pronounced judgment on America’s hypocrisy and called for a righteousness rooted in justice.

Then, there was the potent lament in the valley of dry bones. The prophetic voice was commanded to prophesy to these bones, resulting in their re-clothing with flesh and spirit, symbolizing national resurrection from the death of exile. For African Americans, this text articulates a hope for social and spiritual resurrection amid the dehumanizing “death” inflicted by slavery and oppression, asserting that no condition is beyond the reach of God’s revitalizing power.

Finally, Ezekiel’s prophecy shifts decisively from judgment to the promise of restoration. God pledges to gather the scattered people, cleanse them, and perform an inner transformation: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you… I will put my Spirit in you” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). In the African American experience, the enduring struggle for freedom, civil rights, and full equality embodies this persistent hope for a restored and just society. It represents a journey toward the promise of a new heart for the nation and a restored community.

I will post new insights regularly. In the meantime, shalom!

Dr. Lorrie C. Reed, author of Witness in the Dust and Deep River Crossings.

A Story of Babylon and Black America

by Dr. Lorrie C. Reed, M.Div., Ph.D.

The air in Babylon was thick with the smell of strange spices and despair. Ezekiel, once a priest in Jerusalem, sat by the murky waters of the Chebar Canal, a place that felt as far from God’s temple as possible. He was a captive and an exile, a man whose identity was stripped when his city fell. The songs of his homeland stuck in his throat.

Across an ocean and centuries later, Sam sat on the rough-hewn steps of a plantation cabin, the scent of magnolia doing nothing to sweeten the air of bondage. He, too, was a captive and an exile. His ancestors had been dragged across an ocean in chains, their names, languages, and gods drowned in the Middle Passage.

Exile was their first, deepest wound. Ezekiel’s home was a smoldering ruin, his purpose shattered. His captors demanded, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” But how do you sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? For Sam, the foreign land was his prison. Africa was a fading dream; a story told in whispers. Sam’s Babylon wasn’t a city you could point to on a map; it was the entire system that held him, a vast machine of exile that called itself a nation.

Then, a revelation cracked the sky of their captivity. For Ezekiel, it came in a whirlwind: fiery wheels, four living creatures, and a voice like roaring waters. The message was earth-shattering: “I am here.” God’s glory was not locked in Jerusalem’s ruins. It was present with him, right there in the heart of Babylon. In the pinewood clearings of the American South, Sam’s people found the same shocking truth. Under a canopy of stars, they sang, “I’m so glad trouble don’t last always.” They built the Black church, a living testament that God dwelled not with the enslaver in his pew, but with them in the field, in their suffering. The Divine was a fellow exile.

And this God was not silent. Ezekiel’s paralysis broke, and his voice became a weapon of judgment. He turned on the corrupt shepherds of Israel: “You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, but you do not feed the sheep!” His words were fire, condemning a system that profited from the people’s pain. In America, that prophetic voice took human form. It was in Frederick Douglass asking, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” It was in the thunder from pulpits and the strategic force of Martin Luther King Jr., condemning a nation’s hypocritical check of justice marked “insufficient funds.” They were the Ezekiels of their age, pronouncing judgment on a modern Babylon.

The weight of that judgment could make hope feel like a dead thing. God showed Ezekiel a valley full of dry bones. “Son of man, can these bones live?” God asked. At God’s command, Ezekiel prophesied to the bones. A rattling grew into a roar as sinew and flesh covered them, and breath entered their bodies. They became a vast army where once there was only death. For Sam’s community, this wasn’t just a story; it was their anthem. They sang “Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones” as they worked. The spiritual was a prophecy in melody: a promise that a people broken, scattered, and dried up by oppression could be reassembled and filled with the breath of freedom. It was the hope of resurrection from social and spiritual death.

The vision didn’t end with the rattling. Ezekiel’s message turned toward restoration. “I will gather you from the nations… I will give you a new heart and a new spirit,” God promised. He described a new city with a river of life flowing from its temple. For Sam’s descendants, that promise became the North Star of their journey. It was the dream of Emancipation, the drive for Civil Rights, the relentless hope for the Beloved Community. It was the detailed blueprint for a just society, a new Jerusalem they are still building, brick by brick, vote by vote, prayer by prayer.

Two rivers: the Chebar and the Mississippi. Two exiles: one ancient, one modern. Connected by a story that refuses to die. Even in Babylon, God is present; even dry bones can live, and the promise of a new heart and a rebuilt home is spoken over the captives, waiting for the day it is fully realized.