Prophet ezekiel history

As I looked over the assignment to cover the entire book of Ezekiel in a fifty-minute lecture, it occurred to me that the job is somewhat analogous to trying to guide a tour of Disneyland in one hour. If I were a guide and had to do that for you, I’d really come down to one of two options. One way to do it would be to go inside the park and in that hour’s time, running as fast as we could, try to see as many things as possible, by necessity choosing only the highlights—maybe Pirates of the Caribbean, or the Matterhorn, or the Haunted House. Then our time would be gone. We would just have to say, “When you come back be sure and see this or that.” But there is another option for the guide who really desires to be helpful. At Disneyland there is a monorail which goes all the way around the outside of the park. A guide could spend the hour with you on the monorail, going around and orienting you to the design and layout of the park, pointing out what to look for and how to enjoy it when you get more time to go back.

The same problems are encountered in trying to cover Ezekiel in an hour’s time. We can choose three or four special areas, focus on them in some detail, and tell you that the rest are also interesting. Or we can give an overview, orienting you to the layout of the book, so that when you return to it with more time you can find your own way about.

Obviously, if that is really what we are limited to, both options have their frustrations and their drawbacks. But I choose the second option. We are going to discuss the book of Ezekiel using the “monorail” approach. I accept the inherent frustrations in that approach with the hope that, when you come back to Ezekiel on your own, you will be better

The name Ezekiel most likely rings a bell. Perhaps you participated in a church choir that sang a song about Ezekiel and the wheel he saw in a vision from Veggie Tales or about Ezekiel witnessing dry bones coming to life in a desert in the Delta Rhythm Boys version of Dry Bones.

Or perhaps you’ve heard of this Old Testament prophet through the strange visions he encountered or that he saw a rather different version of angels than we’d see in most Christmas ornaments.

No matter what the case, most of us have at least a vague familiarity with this major prophet from the scriptures.

But what do we know beyond this? Are we aware of the historical background that Ezekiel lived in?

Do we know why God had sent Ezekiel so many bizarre visions, along with prophets during the Babylonian exile such as Daniel?

In this article, we’ll dive into Ezekiel’s cultural context, more about the character of Ezekiel (since we often can lack personal details on prophets in the Bible), and why we should know more about him than just all the visions he saw.

Let’s dive in!

The Cultural Context of Ezekiel

Ezekiel lived during one of the most tumultuous times of Israel. The kingdom had split into two and had gone downhill from there.

Assyrians had picked off the Northern kingdom, and the Southern kingdom of Judah had its day of reckoning coming.

The Babylonian Empire had started to sweep the ancient world and made Israel’s kings pay something known as a tribute.

Essentially, Babylon was a bit like a mob boss, and as long as you paid him off, you wouldn’t run into trouble.

Trouble came, however, when Israel’s king decided to cease their tribute.

Instead of trusting in the Lord to deliver them from the Babylonians, Judah placed its faith in the foreign power of Egypt, the very same people who enslaved them years before.

This doesn’t go over well and the Babylonians successfully lay siege to Jerusalem and take most of its inhabitants captive.

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Timeline

Author and Date

The first dated message in Ezekiel is from the summer of 593 B.C., four years after Nebuchadnezzar deported the first group of exiles to Babylon. The latest dated oracle is 22 years later, in April 571 B.C. If Ezekiel was 30 years old when his ministry began (1:1), the final vision of the book came when he was about 50.

Theme and Purpose

Ezekiel spoke to a people forced from their home because they had broken faith with their God. As the spokesman for the Lord, Ezekiel spoke oracles that defended his reputation as a holy God (see especially 36:22–23). The primary purpose of Ezekiel’s message was to restore God’s glory before Israel, who had rejected him in front of the watching nations.

Background

Ezekiel prophesied during a time of great confusion following Israel’s exile to Babylon in 597 B.C. A former Judean king was among the exiles (the 18-year-old Jehoiachin), and the Babylonians had appointed a puppet king to the throne in Jerusalem (Jehoiachin’s uncle, Zedekiah).

In times of crisis, God sent prophets to bring his message to his people. Judah’s exile was therefore a period of intense prophetic activity. (Jeremiah also served during this time.)

Ezekiel’s fellow exiles were his main audience, but his oracles also communicated to people who remained in Judah.

Key Themes

1. As a priest, Ezekiel was deeply concerned with restoring God’s people to holiness. His understanding of the depth of Israel’s sin is clear in his version of Israel’s history (ch. 20). Even the oracles about a restored Israel (chs. 40–48) include a way to deal with the people’s sin so they can survive in the presence of a holy God. Ezekiel’s concern with sin also accounts for the many places where the book echoes the laws given in the Pentateuch, as well as the similarities between Ezekiel’s new temple (chs. 40–42) and the Exodus tabernacle.
2. Israel was subject to its national God. However, this God is no tribal deity. He is supre

Book of the Bible

For other uses, see Book of Ezekiel (disambiguation).

The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and one of the major prophetic books in the Christian Bible, where it follows Isaiah and Jeremiah. According to the book itself, it records six visions of the prophetEzekiel, exiled in Babylon, during the 22 years from 593 to 571 BC. It is the product of a long and complex history and does not necessarily preserve the words of the prophet.

The visions and the book are structured around three themes: (1) judgment on Israel (chapters 1–24); (2) judgment on the nations (chapters 25–32); and (3) future blessings for Israel (chapters 33–48). Its themes include the concepts of the presence of God, purity, Israel as a divine community, and individual responsibility to God. Its later influence has included the development of mystical and apocalyptic traditions in Second Temple Judaism, Rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity.

Structure

Ezekiel has a broad threefold structure:

Summary

The book opens with a vision of YHWH (יהוה‎). The book moves on to anticipate the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, explains this as God's punishment, and closes with the promise of a new beginning and a new Temple.

1. Inaugural vision Ezekiel 1:1–3:27: God approaches Ezekiel as the divine warrior, riding in His battle chariot. The chariot is drawn by four living creatures, each having four faces (those of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle) and four wings. Beside each "living creature" is a "wheel within a wheel", with "tall and awesome" rims full of eyes all around. God commissions Ezekiel as a prophet and as a "watchman" in Israel: "Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites." (2:3)
2. Judgment on Israel and Judah and on the nations: God warns of the certain destruction of Jerusalem and of the devastation of the nations that have troubled His pe