Nonlinear Literary Dependence between Ezekiel and H? Evaluating Recent Suggestions

Abstract

This article continues the debate over the literary relationship between the Holiness Code (Lev 17–26) and Ezekiel by testing recent appeals to nonlinear (reciprocal) dependence. After locating the question within the broader chronology of Torah and Prophets, I engage two influential defenses of reciprocity—Christophe Nihan and Ariel Kopilovitz—while granting the need to differentiate compositional strata within both corpora. Close analysis of these scholars’ proposed counterexamples (OG Lev 19:26; משכן in Lev 26 and Ezek 37; גלול in Lev 26:30 and Ezek 6; and an exodus “in the sight of the nations” in Lev 26:45 and Ezek 20:9) shows that the evidence offered for H’s dependence on Ezekiel is inconclusive and frequently rests on conceptual conflations and subjective appeals to “incongruity.” I therefore conclude that current reciprocal models have not supplied a concrete reason to abandon Ezekiel’s dependence on H as the most economical account of the shared material, and I call for more critically constrained and objective criteria in future discussions.