Sometimes old expressions fade through generations. Like when I saw a man limping and said, that dude has a hitch in his giddy-up. Some friends had never heard the saying and one wondered if it was offensive. I let them stew on it, too good of an expression to lose.

Ezekiel recorded the Lord, in white hot anger, condemn the religious practices of the people of Judah with this phrase: Look at them putting the branch to their nose!

Commentators disagree as to what this expression specifically means, but all agree that it was really, really bad. One explanation refers to bowing to the sun as it rose in the east. In ancient Persia, when people prayed to the sun they held a bundle of twigs in front of their face so that the bright rays of the sun might not be polluted by human breath.

Veneration of the sun took place in the temple of Jehovah. The people of Judah turned from worshipping the Creator to worshipping the creation. They lost God and focused instead on bad breath.

Literally as I write the sun rises over the horizon. It’s in my eyes, brilliance covering the earth. I pull the shades down in order to see the computer screen. The sun overwhelms my vision.

It’s easy to lose the Lord in my day to day life. Like the sun in my eyes, the immediate demands my attention.

But to realize the sun, one of millions of stars, only a bauble in his firmament, was placed in the heavens by a spoken word of the Lord reminds me of who’s in control and to whom I bow my knee.

Ezekiel 8 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Jordan Wozniak