Son of man, set your face against the mountains of Israel; prophesy against them … - Ezekiel 6:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 27, 2017) Ezekiel6

In 1842, Edgar Allan Poe released his short story “The Mask of the Red Death” (currently the story is known better with a slightly different spelling in the title “The Masque of the Red Death”). The story follows the adventures of Prince Prospero as he tries to avoid a plague known as the “Red Death.” Prospero’s plan is to hide with his nobles inside of his abbey. While death reigns in the countryside, the prince, and his nobles, hide safely behind the walls of the abbey. According to Poe’s story, one night Prospero decides to hold a masquerade party. But as the party progresses, a visitor appears in the room disguised as a victim of the Red Death. Prospero confronts the stranger, but there is no substance to him. As a result of the contact that Prospero has with this apparition, Prospero dies – and in short, order so do all of the nobles that had gathered in the Abbey. The moral of the story is that in reality there is no way to avoid a plague - and it is the height of foolishness to believe that you can.

No one knows what it is that the Red Death represents, but some interesting suggestions have been made. Maybe one of the most interesting ideas is that the Red Death was Poe’s representation of the disease of consumption or what we now know to be tuberculosis. The argument is that Poe had a lot of experience with the disease. Poe’s mother, step-mother, and brother had all died of tuberculosis, and at the time of the writing of the Red Death, Poe’s wife was suffering from the disease. It is thought that Poe himself was in denial about the finality of the disease, but that deep down it seems that he might have known the truth – and that truth that Poe understood was revealed in his writing about the Red Death.

Ezekiel is commanded to set himself against the mountains of Israel. It was in these mountains that Israel found their security. It was there that they had sacrificed to the false gods. It was there that they had built their cities making them hard to attack. The mountains were the walls behind which Judah had tried to hide, secure in the thought that the mountains would protect them. Judah was in denial of what seemed to be so apparent to everyone else who was watching – that the nation was about to fall. They had placed their faith in the mountains, and in the end, it would be the mountains that would reveal the stupidity of the nation’s plan.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 7