Ezekiel

Ezekiel is the priest-prophet of the Babylonian exile. The book opens with him "among the captives by the river Chebar" when "the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God" (Eze 1:1), and dates his call to "the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity" (Eze 1:2). The narrator then names him: "the word of Yahweh came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of Yahweh was there on him" (Eze 1:3). Ben Sira's later catalogue of the worthies remembers him by the inaugural vision: "Ezekiel saw a vision, And declared the different beings of the chariot" (Sir 49:8).

Time and Setting of His Prophecy

Ezekiel prophesies in exile, on Chaldean soil, beside the river Chebar (Eze 1:1-3). The visions are dated by the years of Jehoiachin's captivity rather than by a Judean regnal calendar, and the closing temple-vision is dated to "the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth [day] of the month, in the fourteenth year after that the city was struck" (Eze 40:1). The prophet's career thus straddles the fall of Jerusalem itself.

Persecution

Yahweh warns Ezekiel that resistance from his own people will be physical: "look, they will lay bands on you, and will bind you with them, and you will not go out among them" (Eze 3:25). The same charge brings on the imposed silence that frames much of his ministry: "I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth, that you will be mute, and will not be to them a reprover; for they are a rebellious house" (Eze 3:26). He is to speak only when Yahweh opens his mouth (Eze 3:27).

Visions of the Glory of Yahweh

The first vision is the chariot-throne by the Chebar: a stormy wind out of the north, "a great cloud, with a fire infolding itself, and a brightness round about it, and out of the midst of it as it were glowing metal" (Eze 1:4); four living creatures, each with four faces and four wings (Eze 1:5-6); wheels beside them with rims "full of eyes round about" (Eze 1:18); a firmament "like the awesome crystal" stretched above their heads (Eze 1:22); and on a sapphire throne "a likeness as the appearance of man on it above" (Eze 1:26). Ezekiel concludes: "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of one who spoke" (Eze 1:28).

A second glory-vision lifts him bodily from his house among the elders of Judah and brings him "in visions of God to Jerusalem" (Eze 8:3). There "the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the appearance that I saw in the plain" (Eze 8:4). The chariot reappears in chapter 10: above the cherubim is again a firmament with "as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne" (Eze 10:1), and "the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of God Almighty when he speaks" (Eze 10:5). Then the glory begins to move: "the glory of Yahweh mounted up from the cherub, [and stood] over the threshold of the house" (Eze 10:4); and finally, in chapter 11, "the glory of Yahweh went up from the midst of the city, and stood on the mountain which is on the east side of the city" (Eze 11:23). The departure of the glory from the temple is the hinge of the first half of the book.

The Temple Abominations and Their Punishment

In the same Jerusalem-vision Ezekiel is shown what has driven the glory out. He is told to look toward the north: "look, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry" (Eze 8:5). Yahweh names the indictment: "the great disgusting things that the house of Israel commit here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? But you will again see yet other great disgusting things" (Eze 8:6). The verdict is bare: "as for me also, my eye will not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will bring their way on their head" (Eze 9:10).

The Valley of Dry Bones

In chapter 37 the hand of Yahweh sets Ezekiel down "in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones" (Eze 37:1) — "very many in the open valley; and, look, they were very dry" (Eze 37:2). Yahweh's question, "Son of Man, can these bones live?" is met with Ezekiel's "O Sovereign Yahweh, you know" (Eze 37:3). At the prophesied word breath enters them, "and they lived, and stood up on their feet, an exceedingly great army" (Eze 37:10). The interpretation is given on the spot: "these bones are the whole house of Israel" (Eze 37:11). "Look, I will open your⁺ graves, and cause you⁺ to come up out of your⁺ graves, O my people; and I will bring you⁺ into the land of Israel… And I will put my Spirit in you⁺, and you⁺ will live, and I will place you⁺ in your⁺ own land" (Eze 37:12-14).

The Man with the Measuring Line

The closing vision-block (chapters 40 to 48) is given in the twenty-fifth year of the captivity, "the fourteenth year after that the city was struck" (Eze 40:1). Yahweh sets him "on a very high mountain, on which was, as it were the frame of a city on the south" (Eze 40:2). "And he brought me there; and, look, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate" (Eze 40:3). The charge is to watch and report: "Son of Man, look with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart on all that I will show you… declare all that you see to the house of Israel" (Eze 40:4). The man with the measuring reed paces out the new temple, courts, altar, priestly chambers, and the boundaries of the restored land across Eze 40 through Eze 48.

The River from the Sanctuary

Inside that closing block stands a vision treated on its own. The man brings Ezekiel back to the door of the house, and "waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward… from the right side of the house, on the south of the altar" (Eze 47:1). Measured off in thousand-cubit stages, the waters are first ankle-deep, then knee-deep, then loin-deep, "afterward… a river that I could not pass through; for the waters were risen, waters to swim in" (Eze 47:5). On its banks "were very many trees on the one side and on the other" (Eze 47:7). The river runs east into the sea, "and the waters will be healed" (Eze 47:8); "everything will live wherever the river comes" (Eze 47:9). And on each bank "every tree for food, whose leaf will not wither, neither will its fruit fail: it will bring forth new fruit every month, because its waters issue out of the sanctuary; and its fruit will be for food, and its leaf for healing" (Eze 47:12). The chapter then sets the borders by which the land is to be divided "for inheritance according to the twelve tribes of Israel" (Eze 47:13-14).

Teaching by Pantomime

Much of Ezekiel's ministry is acted, not spoken. Yahweh imposes muteness as the baseline (Eze 3:26); the prophet's body becomes the message.

The Tile and the Siege

"You also, Son of Man, take for yourself a tile, and lay it before you, and portray on it a city, even Jerusalem: and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about" (Eze 4:1-2). An iron pan goes between him and the tile "for a wall of iron between you and the city… This will be a sign to the house of Israel" (Eze 4:3). He lies on his left side three hundred and ninety days for the iniquity of Israel, then on his right side forty days for the iniquity of Judah, "each day for a year" (Eze 4:5-6). His siege-rations are a mixed bread of "wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt" (Eze 4:9), eaten by weight, with water by measure, baked in their sight over fuel that signs uncleanness (Eze 4:10-13).

The Shaved Head

"And you, Son of Man, take yourself a sharp sword; [as] a barber's razor you will take it to yourself, and will cause it to pass on your head and on your beard: then take yourself balances to weigh, and divide the hair" (Eze 5:1). One third he burns in the city, one third he strikes with the sword round about it, and one third he scatters to the wind (Eze 5:2). A few hairs are bound in his skirt; some of even those are then cast into the fire (Eze 5:3-4) — the three fates of the city's people.

The Exile's Baggage

"Prepare for yourself stuff for removing, and remove by day in their sight; and you will remove from your place to another place in their sight: it may be they will consider, though they are a rebellious house" (Eze 12:3). He carries the bundle out at evening "as when men go forth into exile" (Eze 12:4), digs through the wall in their sight (Eze 12:5), shoulders his goods in the dark with his face covered, "for I have set you for a sign to the house of Israel" (Eze 12:6); and "I did so as I was commanded" (Eze 12:7).

The Public Sigh

"Sigh therefore, you Son of Man; with the breaking of your loins and with bitterness you will sigh before their eyes" (Eze 21:6). When the people ask why, he is to answer: "Because of the news, for it comes; and every heart will melt, and all hands will be feeble, and every spirit will faint, and all knees will be weak as water" (Eze 21:7).

The Boiling Pot

Dated to "the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth [day] of the month" — the very day "the king of Babylon drew close to Jerusalem" (Eze 24:1-2) — Ezekiel is told to utter the parable of the cauldron: "Set on the cauldron, set it on, and also pour water into it: gather its pieces into it, even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones" (Eze 24:3-4). "Woe to the bloody city, to the cauldron whose corrosion is in it, and whose corrosion has not gone out of it!" (Eze 24:6). The cauldron is then set "empty on its coals, that it may be hot, and its bronze may burn" (Eze 24:11). The verdict: "you will not be cleansed from your filthiness anymore… I, Yahweh, have spoken it: it will come to pass, and I will do it: I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent" (Eze 24:13-14).

The Death of His Wife

"Son of Man, look, I take away from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke: yet you will neither mourn nor weep, neither will your tears run down" (Eze 24:16). He is to sigh silently, keep his headtire and sandals on, and refrain from the customary mourner's bread (Eze 24:17). "So I spoke to the people in the morning; and at evening my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded" (Eze 24:18). The interpretation, given when the people ask: Yahweh will profane the sanctuary, "the desire of your⁺ eyes" (Eze 24:21); their sons and daughters will fall by the sword; they too will not mourn aloud (Eze 24:22-23). "Thus Ezekiel will be to you⁺ a sign; according to all that he has done you⁺ will do" (Eze 24:24). The dumbness is also given an end: "In that day your mouth will be opened to him who has escaped, and you will speak, and be mute no more: so you will be a sign to them" (Eze 24:27); fulfilled when the survivor from Jerusalem reaches him and "my mouth was opened, and I was mute no more" (Eze 33:21-22).

The Parable of the Eagle

"Son of Man, put forth a riddle, and speak a parable to the house of Israel" (Eze 17:2). "A great eagle with great wings and long pinions, full of feathers, which had diverse colors, came to Lebanon, and took the top of the cedar" (Eze 17:3); the cropped twig is taken to a city of merchants (Eze 17:4); seed of the land is planted by many waters and grows into a low spreading vine (Eze 17:5-6). Then "another great eagle" appears, and the vine bends its roots toward him (Eze 17:7-8). The verdict: "Will it prosper? Will he not pull up its roots, and cut off its fruit, that it may wither… It will wither on the rows where it grew" (Eze 17:9-10).

Other Parables

Four further parable-chapters are grouped with the prophet's sign-acts. In Eze 15, Jerusalem is the useless vine-wood: "what is the vine-tree more than any tree, the vine-branch which is among the trees of the forest?… Look, it is cast into the fire for fuel" (Eze 15:2,4). In Eze 16 Yahweh tells Ezekiel to "cause Jerusalem to know her disgusting behaviors" and traces her birth: "Your birth and your nativity is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite" (Eze 16:2-3). Eze 19 is the lamentation for the princes — "What was your mother? A lioness: she couched among lions, in the midst of the young lions she nourished her whelps" (Eze 19:2). Eze 23 names the two-sister parable: "there were two women, the daughters of one mother… Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah" (Eze 23:2,4).

His Popularity

Yahweh diagnoses the prophet's audience: "they come to you like the coming of a people, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but don't do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain" (Eze 33:31). "And, look, you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a beautiful voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they don't do them" (Eze 33:32).