Ezekiel 47 and the 2026 Season of Creation
The international ecumenical Season of Creation for 2026 adopts the theme “Living Water,” drawing upon Ezekiel 47:9 and 12 in the Hebrew Bible. The imagery is compelling,
[portraying] God’s life-giving water flowing from the temple of God. The river grows deeper and deeper restoring barren land, reviving waters, and sustaining flourishing ecosystems. The vision invites human responsibility: recognising ecological damage, embracing interconnectedness, we are called to immerse ourselves in the water, and actively safeguarding and working for the renewal of creation so that environmental healing and human well-being may flourish together.[1]
Water flows from the sanctuary, grows into an extraordinary river and transforms the landscape. Fish flourish, trees produce abundant fruit, and leaves provide healing. It is understandable that churches using the 2026 resources, including congregations within the Uniting Church, should find the passage attractive for ecological reflection.
But can the text of Ezekiel 47 perform the theological and ecological work asked of it? It has genuine ecological significance, but its specific contribution becomes clearer when its historical meaning and contemporary appropriation are properly distinguished.
Reading Ezekiel in context
Ezekiel 47 belongs to the concluding vision of Ezekiel 40–48. The ancient city of Jerusalem has fallen, the temple has been destroyed and significant portions of the population have experienced death, displacement and exile. The final chapters of this prophetic book imagine an amazing, God-driven restoration through a renewed temple, restored divine presence, reordered community and redistributed land.
The river flows from the temple itself. It flows because God’s life-giving presence has returned. As it travels eastward, it becomes deeper until it reaches the region of the Dead Sea, where its waters generate extraordinary fertility. The stream is not initially presented as a project of environmental rehabilitation undertaken by human beings but as a generous gift of God.
The imagery of this futuristic world is profoundly material. There are no choirs of saints singing from hymn books among the clouds. There are no angels playing harps, or small children reunited with teary grandparents. Water, fish, trees, fruit and healing are the central images of the vision. Ecological interpretation is justified in resisting an exclusively spiritual reading. Yet the passage’s primary horizon is earthy theological restoration rather than modern environmental crisis.
Contemporary Season of Creation resources sometimes describe the text using categories such as ecological restoration, biodiversity, damaged ecosystems and human responsibility. Such language can be fruitful as interpretation and application but should not be confused with historical description of Ezekiel’s own conceptual world.
What the text can bear
Here’s the good news. Read carefully, Ezekiel 47 offers several substantial resources for ecological theology. First, the vision associates divine presence with material flourishing. Second, salvation is not imagined only as other-worldly spiritual reconciliation: land, water, vegetation, produce and animal life participate in the restoration of the Earth. Third, life is presented as a divine gift rather than a commodity or product of human mastery, and sacred presence extends beyond the temple into the wider natural—identifiably terrestrial—landscape. We learn that flourishing is communal and ecological, bringing together fish, trees, food and healing.
These are significant theological themes. They challenge excessively anthropocentric accounts of salvation and encourage Christians to imagine the wider creation as participating in divine purposes. Ezekiel 47 deserves a place within ecological theology.
Now for the bad news. The interpretive bridge becomes longer when the text is made to directly establish contemporary human responsibility for ecological disaster and recovery. In Ezekiel 47:1–12, human beings do not create the river, restore the water, plant the trees or repair the landscape. Divine initiative dominates the vision. The conclusion that Christians today should participate actively in ecological restoration may be well grounded, but its foundations must be broader than these verses alone.
The methodological sequence outlined earlier is helpful here: ancient text, historical interpretation, ecological interrogation, canonical conversation, theological synthesis, scientific knowledge, ethical discernment and prudential action. Genesis traditions of human vocation, Sabbath limits upon exploitation, prophetic concerns for justice, Gospel teachings concerning peace-making and neighbour-love, Pauline visions of cosmic reconciliation and Christian doctrines of creation and discipleship may all contribute to the canonical and theological stages.
Scientific knowledge must then identify contemporary environmental problems and their causes, ethical reasoning must consider human obligations, and political judgment must assess possible responses. Once these stages are recognised, Ezekiel 47 no longer has to do all the work of demanding Christian environmental responsibility.
Reading beyond verses 9 and 12
Ecological hermeneutics also encourages us to explore beyond the officially selected verses. Verse 11 notes that some marshes and swamps remain saline, which at least cautions against reading the passage as a simple description of uniform ecological restoration. More importantly, the chapter continues beyond the river vision to questions of territory, boundaries and land distribution. Ezekiel 47:21–23 includes a striking provision concerning resident aliens and their inheritance among Israel’s tribes.
The broader context expands the interpretive horizon. If contemporary readers wish to ask ecological questions of Ezekiel 47, they might also ask about relationships among flourishing landscapes, land allocation, belonging and justice. The chapter may therefore support a richer contemporary conversation when read as a whole rather than when verses 9 and 12 are isolated as ecological proof-texts.
Another distinction becomes necessary when Season of Creation resources move from Scripture toward climate change, water security, pollution or biodiversity loss. Ezekiel 47 cannot establish the scientific facts underlying those concerns, nor should anyone expect it to. Those questions require contemporary ecological expertise.
Scripture, science and application
The text of Ezekiel shapes Christian imagination regarding divine generosity, life, restoration and the essentially material character of eschatological hope. Other biblical texts and theological traditions develop trustworthy accounts of the nature of human responsibility, the need for climate justice, and the imperative of restraint in the face of obscene consumption and pollution. Scientific evidence tells congregations what is happening in particular ecological systems, and what is likely to happen in the short- and long-term, while Christian ethical reasoning considers what faithful response may require today.
This approach is less rhetorically immediate than declaring Ezekiel a direct mandate for climate action, but it is more robust. It also allows Christians who disagree about particular policy instruments to remain within a common theological conversation about creation and responsibility.
The purpose of raising these questions is to not dismiss the impressive and timely Season of Creation resources or those who prepared them. The 2026 theme belongs to a global ecumenical initiative rather than originating with the Uniting Church, and its central intention is constructive: to encourage prayer, reflection and action for creation. Congregational resources necessarily communicate briefly and imaginatively and should not be expected to function like specialist biblical commentaries.
Nevertheless, resources explicitly encouraging Christians to engage Scripture can benefit from distinguishing more carefully among what Ezekiel originally imagines, what contemporary ecological theology draws from that imagery, and what present scientific and ethical knowledge requires Christians to confront. A resource might suggest that Ezekiel offers a theological vision in which God’s restorative presence brings abundant life to a damaged landscape.
Read alongside the wider biblical witness and contemporary ecological knowledge, such a vision invites us to consider how discipleship practices may promote healing rather than destruction. The ethical destination may be shared, but the hermeneutical route is clearer.
Worship, formation and action
Season of Creation also raises a wider question about worship. Biblical texts used liturgically should not become merely vehicles for mobilising congregations toward predetermined campaigns. Worship is first directed toward God. Yet this does not imply ecological or political neutrality. Worship forms moral perception. Gratitude for creation, confession of destructive habits, lament over environmental loss and hope for restoration can reshape Christian life.
The relationship is therefore formation rather than propaganda. This distinction may be especially important where ecological issues have become politically polarised. Congregations should be equipped to understand both scientific evidence and Christian theological reasoning rather than simply being asked to adopt ecclesial slogans. An irenic ecological hermeneutic can create precisely such space.
Let the river remain Ezekiel’s river
Clearly, Ezekiel 47 is a worthwhile though limited text for the 2026 Season of Creation. The question is not whether it may be read ecologically, but how. It does not need to be rejected because Ezekiel lacked modern ecological science, nor transformed into a twenty-first-century environmental manifesto. Its contribution is both more modest and more profound. The passage portrays restoration as embodied abundance. Divine life reaches damaged places. Water, fish, trees, fruit, human communities and healing belong within the prophet’s vision.
Such imagery can unsettle a Christianity concerned only with human souls and encourage a wider theological imagination. But Ezekiel’s river need not carry every environmental concern downstream. Christian ecological responsibility is better grounded cumulatively: in creation theology, Christology, neighbour-love, justice, Sabbath, creaturely limitation, solidarity with vulnerable communities, eschatological hope and the best available scientific knowledge. Policy settings are then matters for informed ethical and political judgment.
This distinction strengthens rather than weakens Christian ecological advocacy. Scripture need not perform all the work in order to perform indispensable work. Good ecological hermeneutics does not ask a biblical text to say everything contemporary Christians need to say on an issue. It listens carefully to what the text does say, acknowledges what it does not say, and undertakes the harder task of theological discernment.
Faith-based ecological action
The 2026 theme for Season of Creation offers congregations an opportunity deeper than the adoption of an attractive ecological metaphor. It invites us to learn how ancient Scripture, Christian theology, contemporary science and ethical responsibility might speak to one another without any one of them being asked to replace the others.
That is not a retreat from ecological urgency, biblically-shaped ethics or practical discipleship. It is one way of ensuring that Christian ecological discipleship is faithful to rational interpretation of Scripture, intellectually responsible regarding scientific data, and focused on practical and scalable solutions to the impending climate emergency that is undoubtedly the central moral issue of our time.
Rev Dr Rod Benson is General Secretary of the NSW Ecumenical Council and a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia serving at North Rocks Community Church in Sydney.
Reference
[1] https://seasonofcreation.org/ (blurb on main page).
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