For-Profit Prophets? Ezekiel 13:17–23 and the Threat of Female Intermediaries

The passage concerning female intermediaries in Ezek 13:17–23 is beset with interpretational obstacles. For example, the Hebrew is unclear as to whether the women receive payment in barley and bread, even though many translations assert it. Commentators often assume the payment hints at corruption. Yet the passage suggests that Ezekiel believed the women wielded significant power in their community, amounting to far greater gains than grains.

The exact nature of their ritual activities remains uncertain, but reading Ezek 13:17–23 in the context of other passages concerning women and religious authority sheds light on Ezekiel's ideology and rhetoric. For example, the misogynistic language in Ezekiel 16 and 23 reflects his androcentric response to the emasculating experience of the Babylonian exile. Ezekiel's desire to preserve the Judean community in Babylonia provoked him to condemn women whom he thought perverted their social roles. The same desire is reflected in his efforts to assert his religious authority as a Zadokite priest and Yhwh's prophet. Those who contradicted him represented a threat to his credibility and his attempts to preserve the group identity of his community.

Ezekiel 13:17–23 thus sits at the intersection of two of Ezekiel's societal concerns: women and religious authority. It is important to recognize this context as well as his use of gendered rhetoric to undermine the female intermediaries. Such an understanding contradicts the traditional interpretation that the female intermediaries really were conducting dangerous sorcery: an interpretation which has historically harmed those (primarily women) accused of being witches.