By the Rivers of Babylon gets inside the mind of the prophet Ezekiel

Few contemporary Catholic authors of fiction are more acclaimed than Michael O’Brien. Born in Ottawa, Canada in the late 1940s, he has become well-known for his novels, including the Children of the Last Days series in a post-Christian dystopian setting featuring the character Father Elijah. O’ Brien’s latest work, By the Rivers of Babylon, is a beautiful imagined autobiography of the prophet Ezekiel.

The novel begins with young Ezekiel embarking on studies to enter the temple priesthood in Jerusalem. It is the start of the sixth century BC, and King Nebuchadnezzar and his fierce Babylonian armies loom on the horizon. Only a few in Judea regard the possibility of an existential moment of destruction visiting Mount Zion: it seems that many more presume that nothing will come of Babylon’s advances, since God had protected the Holy City so often in the past. Ezekiel recounts briefly meeting the prophet Jeremiah and noting how many of his countrymen failed to listen to his warnings, choosing instead to ridicule and punish him.

When the occupying forces do invade, Ezekiel resolves to stay close to the House of God rather than to flee. Together with scores of others, Ezekiel is captured and forced to march many miles to the east. They come to realize that their captors are relocating them to Babylon as slaves, and that waves of many more Israelites will eventually be joining them. The remainder of the book highlights the first several years of his captivity as the Israelites try to make sense of their plight and endeavor to build a new life for themselves. O’Brien expertly paints the picture of the anguish of the Jews in exile. What will the practice of their faith look like in a land so far from home? What is of greatest value to them amid such poverty and the depravity of their pagan overlords?

One of the things in O’Brien’s novel that I found so endearing is Ezekiel’s deep sense of humility and reverence. While not old enough to be one of the elders of the newly formed village, Ezekiel commands respect from them for his piety and writes down as much of the Scriptures as he is able to retain in his memory, especially from the Torah and Isaiah. The community’s leaders had to withstand the troublesome influence of groups resembling the Pharisees of Jesus’ day and skeptical academics of more modern times. Moreover, Ezekiel resists the allure of the foreign land’s customs, whereas numerous peers of his had no such qualms about abandoning the traditions of their ancestors and going over to sinful ways.

I also appreciated how O’Brien helps the reader to immerse oneself in the daily life of a Jewish person in exile. People with very little experience in the rudimentary tasks of agriculture, ditch digging, and brickmaking suddenly had to adapt to the new reality of life. Rather than to waste away in idleness and despair, the people needed to rely on the grace of God to remain resilient and apply their talents to the challenges of the present moment. In addition, O’Brien describes the weather and landscape of the place so vividly that I as a reader almost felt as though I had been there myself.

Lastly, O’Brien must be a man of deep faith, since there are so many references to Biblical themes: the novel uses foreshadowings to allude to the most familiar images in Ezekiel’s later prophecy while not getting too far “into the weeds” of theological jargon. There is no doubt in my mind that many a reader will come to see By the Rivers of Babylon as both an engaging story and a labor of love.