Contemplative Bible Reading

Ezekiel 21:21 (New Living Translation)

The king of Babylon now stands at the fork, uncertain whether to attack Jerusalem or Rabbah. He calls his magicians to look for omens. They cast lots by shaking arrows from the quiver. They inspect the livers of animal sacrifices.

The King of Babylon needed advice from his advisors, a.k.a., magicians. What do the advisors do? They inspect the livers of animal sacrifices.

Sounds silly, but the King of Babylon had quite a successful kingdom. They had riches, palaces, sciences, education (for some), and lots of conquered territory. Who is to argue with success? If the King’s advisors looked at livers of dead animals, well, it must have been working.

No, it still sounds silly. Yet, given the success surrounding the silliness, people everywhere were attracted to such. These people included the special people chosen by God. They had to delve into such practices because, well, those practices seemed to work and were used by people who were successful and educated and, well, we keep coming back to the successful part.

Today? Does silliness seem attractive. Well, success still seems attractive and lots of successful people do things that are silly and downright unrighteous. Tempting? Of course these sometimes silly and often times unrighteous practices of the successful are tempting.

That “straight and narrow” stuff still applies.