8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning...

8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward. 9 Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.

If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; 10 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: 11 And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

12 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.” The many expressions of this passage all fit the character and actions of Imam Ali very well. There are many narrations referring to the Imam (as) feeding the hungry. He also functioned to lift the burdens of the people, and dispelling backbiting and falsehood.

But the text emphasizes the direct divine guidance that was given to the Imam. The two passages in Ezekiel give quite a different message. They focus on the failure of Israel to fulfill their God-given role of leadership in propagating monotheism in the world. Ezekiel 13:5 “Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.” This brings up the context of the need for the proclamation of Al-Ghadeer.

Both Jews and Christians eventually failed to carry out the divine mandate. Therefore it was necessary to correct their failures through the revelation of the Qur’an, and the establishment of a “fence” or ghadeer to preserve divine law for the world. The text notes that the house of Israel will have to answer for the failure in the day of judgement.

This failure is even more clearly pinpointed in Ezekiel 22:30 “And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.” The Imamate comes into its own specifically with Imam Ali at the proclamation of Al-Ghadeer. Psalm 62 is one of the Imamic Psalms, having twelve verses.