Don’t Feel It, Don’t Heal It: Ezekiel 24:15–27 and Divine Dissociation

Abstract Many scholars have tried to make sense of and moralize not only Ezekiel’s lack of response in 24:15–27 but also why YHWH would command something so disturbing. While trauma interpretations of Ezekiel are plentiful, no one has yet understood how the coping mechanism and survival adaptation of dissociation symptomatically fits the description of what is embodied and enacted by Ezekiel in this scene. Dissociation, however, should be understood on a spectrum from harmful to helpful, with no purely positive or negative connotations. Yet dissociation, as encouraged or enforced by someone in power, should be understood as abusive. Ultimately, in a holistic understanding of trauma and dissociation, I argue that in the same way that Ezekiel and the people in exile are told to sever themselves from ritual and relational meaning-making processes, as well as from those in Jerusalem, the “meaning” of the passage becomes centered on dissociation. Further, dissociation as the point of the text means that we are severed from meaning as readers and interpreters.