Other chapters of the book are long essays detailing the history of the Lord's relationship with the people---chapters 16 (the Lord's relationship with personified Jerusalem), 20 (the retelling of the Exodus), and 23 (the story of the two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, respectively Samaria and Jerusalem). In the two allegories (16 and 23), the Lord came upon helpless women and made them noble, yet they fought him every step of the way. What is the purpose of these exceedingly negative retellings of Israel's history? One must be aware that Israel found its identity by telling its national story. A comparison may be helpful. A modern person's identity arises largely from his or her own story: who one's parents were and of what social class; where one grew up, went to school, where one worked , and whom one married. If one becomes unhappy or dysfunctional, one examines one's story and seeks to find a new and more productive way of telling that story. Similarly, Ezekiel felt the people misunderstood their national story; they had to be shown that their version no longer made sense; it was not uniformly glorious as the people commonly believed. So Ezekiel retold the story in new and perverse ways. He said that the people were unfaithful from the beginning; their history gave them no reason for pride.
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