As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. – Ezekiel 47:3

Today's Scripture Reading (July 21, 2020): Ezekiel 47

Interpretation is hard. I am not a big fan of social media because it is often difficult to get the entire meaning of the words when it is written down in text form. And in the past, I have gotten into spitting wars with people (usually tongue in cheek, at least on my part), over the use of words. By the way, spitting wars never work, and I really need to learn to leave them alone.

One such war concluded with the comment, not from me, that my words were wasted because my opponent was not like any of the (Insert occupation here) that I was describing. What he missed was that I was not like any of the Christians or pastors that he was describing. It was an impressive double standard that my friend apparently did not understand. This is you, but this is not me. Did I mention interpretation is hard?

So-, if we misunderstand each other on social media, how much harder can it get when we begin to try to interpret the written comments of a foreign language. And Ezekiel's comment here is an example of that problem.

Ezekiel is clearly describing the deepening water of the River of Life flowing out of the Temple in his vision. But when he gets to this point in the river, he says that the water is ankle deep, or deep enough to cover the ankles. The phrase he actually uses is literally "water of ankles," which is an unusual phrase. Theologian John Taylor relates that when the translators of the Septuagint got to Ezekiel's "water of ankles," they tried to make sense of it by translating it as "water of remission." A few centuries later, Christians took hold of the Septuagint translation and made it into the "waters of baptism," and in the process created a theology that simply did not follow from the text.

But the reality is that there is nothing more meant by the phrase than that the water was deep enough to reach the ankles. Sometimes the most obvious explanation really is the best. Or, as Sigmund Freud is supposed to have said, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 48