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Old Testament · Prophecy with apocalyptic visions

The Book of Ezekiel: Author, Context and Complete Study

Ezekiel is the message of a priest-prophet among the exiles in Babylon, who saw the glory of God leave the temple before Jerusalem fell. After the fall he announced new life: a new heart, dry bones raised and a renewed temple where the Lord dwells.

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What is Ezekiel about?

Ezekiel is the book of a priest taken to Babylon in 597 BC and called as a prophet in 593 BC through a dazzling vision of God's glory. Until Jerusalem fell in 586 BC he warned the exiles, through sermons, visions and startling symbolic acts, that the city would be destroyed for its idolatry, and he saw the glory of the Lord leave the temple. After the fall he proclaimed hope: a new heart and spirit, a valley of dry bones brought to life, and a renewed temple in a city named The Lord Is There (48:35).

Author
Ezekiel son of Buzi, a priest deported to Babylon in 597 BC (1:1-3). The book is written mostly in his own first-person voice, and Jewish and Christian tradition accepts him as its author.
Date
Oracles dated from 593 to 571 BC (1:2; 29:17), during the Babylonian exile; the book was probably completed soon after.
First readers
Judean exiles in Babylon, deported with King Jehoiachin, who hoped Jerusalem would be spared and then had to face its fall and ask whether God had abandoned them.
Genre
Prophecy with apocalyptic visions
Chapters
48 chapters
Key verse
Ezekiel 36:26

Historical context

In 597 BC Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem, took King Jehoiachin to Babylon and deported the city's leaders, warriors and craftsmen (2 Kings 24:10-16). Ezekiel, a young priest, was among them. Five years later, in 593 BC, while living with other exiles beside the Chebar canal, he received his call (1:1-3). In Jerusalem Zedekiah ruled as a Babylonian vassal, and many in both Jerusalem and Babylon believed the exile would be short and the city safe; false prophets fed that hope (13:1-16).

Ezekiel's first message was the opposite: Jerusalem would fall. Zedekiah rebelled, the Babylonian army began its siege in 588 BC, on the very day Ezekiel was told to write down (24:1-2), and the city fell in 586 BC. News reached the exiles through a fugitive (33:21). From then on Ezekiel's message turned to restoration. His last dated oracle comes from the twenty-seventh year of the exile, 571 BC (29:17), and Babylon remained the dominant power until Cyrus of Persia conquered it in 539 BC.

Geographical context

Ezekiel lived among the exiles at Tel-abib by the Chebar canal (3:15), a waterway near the city of Nippur in the heart of Babylonia. His house became a meeting place for the elders of Judah (8:1; 14:1; 20:1). For a priest it was astonishing to see the glory of God far from the temple, in a foreign land; the vision of chapter 1 showed that the Lord's throne moves wherever he wills.

In visions Ezekiel was carried to Jerusalem (8:3), where he saw idolatry in the temple courts and watched the glory move to the east gate and then to the mountain east of the city, the Mount of Olives (10:18-19; 11:23). His oracles reach Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, the trading city of Tyre, Sidon and Egypt (25-32). The final vision sets him on a very high mountain in the land of Israel (40:2), with a river flowing east from the temple to the Dead Sea (47:1-12).

Why does the book of Ezekiel exist?

Ezekiel was written for exiles who had lost almost everything and still clung to false hopes. Its first purpose was to shatter those hopes: Jerusalem would fall, not because God was weak, but because his people had defiled his sanctuary and broken his covenant. The book insists that God is holy and that his glory will not stay among persistent idolatry.

Its second purpose was to rebuild hope on a better foundation. The God who judged would act for the sake of his holy name (36:22): he would gather his scattered people, give them a new heart and his own Spirit, raise the nation from its grave like dry bones and dwell among them again. Again and again the book says the goal is that people will know that he is the Lord. Ezekiel also teaches personal responsibility (18), the duty of the watchman who warns (3; 33) and the hope of a shepherd from David's line (34; 37), and its visions shape the last book of the Bible.

Outline of Ezekiel

  1. Chapters 1-3

    The call: God's glory by the Chebar

    Ezekiel sees the living creatures, the wheels and the throne of God's glory (1), receives a scroll to eat and is sent to a stubborn people (2-3), and is appointed a watchman for the house of Israel (3:16-21).

  2. Chapters 4-7

    Signs of the coming siege

    Ezekiel acts out the siege with a model of Jerusalem, lies on his side for many days, eats rationed bread and shaves his hair, then announces the end coming on the land and its idolatrous high places.

  3. Chapters 8-11

    The glory leaves the temple

    Carried in visions to Jerusalem, Ezekiel sees idolatry in the temple, the marking of those who grieve over it, judgment beginning at the sanctuary and the glory of the Lord departing to the mountain east of the city.

  4. Chapters 12-24

    Why Jerusalem must fall

    More sign-acts, oracles against false prophets, allegories of the useless vine, the unfaithful wife and the two sisters, the teaching on personal responsibility (18), and finally the start of the siege and the death of Ezekiel's wife (24).

  5. Chapters 25-32

    Oracles against the nations

    Judgment on Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon and Egypt. The long laments over Tyre and its king (26-28) and over Pharaoh (29-32) show that no proud power escapes the Lord.

  6. Chapters 33-37

    The fall and the promise of new life

    The watchman's charge is renewed and a fugitive brings word that the city has fallen (33:21). God promises a true shepherd, a new heart and spirit, the dry bones raised, and Judah and Israel united under one king.

  7. Chapters 38-39

    Gog of the land of Magog

    A vast coalition from the far north attacks God's restored people and is destroyed by the Lord himself, so that the nations will see his holiness and Israel will know him from that day on.

  8. Chapters 40-48

    The vision of the new temple

    In the twenty-fifth year of the exile Ezekiel is shown a measured temple, the return of God's glory (43), laws for worship and priests, a river of life flowing from the sanctuary (47) and the land shared among the tribes around a city named The Lord Is There.

Famous passages in Ezekiel

  • Ezekiel 1:4-28

    The vision of God's glory

    By the Chebar canal Ezekiel sees a storm cloud, four living creatures with the faces of a human, a lion, an ox and an eagle, wheels within wheels full of eyes, and above them a throne with a figure like a man, shining like fire and surrounded by rainbow light. It is one of the most detailed visions of God in Scripture and the background for Revelation 4.

    Study Ezekiel 1 →

  • Ezekiel 3:16-21

    The watchman

    God appoints Ezekiel a watchman for Israel: if he fails to warn the wicked, their blood will be required at his hand, but if he warns them and they refuse, he has delivered his own soul. The passage is often applied to the responsibility of preachers, parents and leaders to speak the truth in love.

    Study Ezekiel 3 →

  • Ezekiel 18:20-32

    Turn and live

    The exiles quoted a proverb that children suffer for their parents' sour grapes (18:2). God answers that each person is responsible before him, that the wicked who turn from their sins will live, and that he takes no pleasure in anyone's death. The chapter ends with a call to get a new heart and live (18:31-32).

    Study Ezekiel 18 →

  • Ezekiel 34:11-16

    God the shepherd of his flock

    After condemning Israel's leaders as shepherds who fed themselves, God promises to search for his scattered sheep himself, bring back the strays, bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, and to set over them one shepherd, his servant David (34:23). Jesus echoes the chapter when he calls himself the good shepherd.

    Study Ezekiel 34 →

  • Ezekiel 36:24-28

    A new heart and a new spirit

    God promises to gather his people, sprinkle clean water on them, remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh, and put his own Spirit within them so that they walk in his ways. It is one of the clearest Old Testament promises of the new birth and of the work of the Holy Spirit.

    Study Ezekiel 36 →

  • Ezekiel 37:1-14

    The valley of dry bones

    God sets Ezekiel in a valley full of dry bones and asks whether they can live. As Ezekiel prophesies, the bones come together, flesh covers them and the breath of God makes them a vast army. God explains that the bones are Israel without hope, whom he will bring out of their graves and fill with his Spirit.

    Study Ezekiel 37 →

  • Ezekiel 47:1-12

    The river flowing from the temple

    Water flows from under the temple threshold, growing from ankle-deep to a river too deep to cross, and makes even the Dead Sea fresh. Fruit trees line its banks, bearing every month, with leaves for healing. Revelation 22:1-2 takes up the image for the river of life in the new Jerusalem.

    Study Ezekiel 47 →

Main themes

The glory of the Lord
The book opens with God's glory appearing in Babylon (1:28), shows it leaving the defiled temple (10-11) and ends with it returning to a new one (43:1-5). God's presence is the greatest gift his people can have and the deepest loss they can suffer.
Holiness and idolatry
As a priest, Ezekiel sees sin as the defiling of what is holy. Idols in the temple courts, bloodshed and injustice (8; 22) make it impossible for the holy God to remain among his people.
Knowing that he is the Lord
More than sixty times the book says that God acts, in judgment and in salvation, so that Israel and the nations will know that he is the Lord. History has one goal: the true knowledge of God.
Personal responsibility
Against fatalism, chapter 18 teaches that each person answers for his own sin and that anyone who turns from evil will live. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (18:23, 32; 33:11).
A new heart and the Spirit
Israel cannot change itself. God promises to replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh and to put his own Spirit within his people (11:19; 36:26-27; 37:14), a promise fulfilled in the new covenant.
Restoration and God's presence
The dry bones live, Judah and Israel become one nation, David's heir shepherds them and God dwells among them forever (37:24-28), until the very name of the city becomes The Lord Is There (48:35).

Main characters

Ezekiel
A priest, son of Buzi, deported in 597 BC and called five years later, probably at thirty (1:1). God addresses him as son of man more than ninety times. He obeyed demanding sign-acts, was at times unable to speak, and lost his wife as a sign to the people (24:15-24).
The elders of Israel
Leaders of the exiles who came to sit before Ezekiel to hear a word from the Lord (8:1; 14:1; 20:1). God exposed the idols they had taken into their hearts (14:3), and later the people listened to the prophet as if he sang love songs (33:30-32).
Jaazaniah son of Shaphan
One of the seventy elders Ezekiel saw in his vision offering incense before images carved on the temple walls (8:10-12). He stands for leaders who practiced idolatry in secret, telling themselves that the Lord did not see them.
Pelatiah son of Benaiah
A leader in Jerusalem who gave wicked counsel. He died while Ezekiel prophesied in his vision, and the prophet fell on his face and cried out, asking whether God would destroy the whole remnant (11:1-13).
Ezekiel's wife
Called the delight of his eyes, she died suddenly around the time the siege of Jerusalem began. God told Ezekiel not to mourn openly, as a sign that the exiles would be too stunned to mourn the loss of their temple (24:15-24).
Oholah and Oholibah
Two sisters in an allegory, standing for Samaria and Jerusalem, who prostituted themselves with Egypt, Assyria and Babylon. Their story (23) presents political alliances and idolatry as unfaithfulness to the Lord.
The king of Tyre
The proud ruler of a wealthy island city, who claimed to be a god (28:2). Ezekiel's lament pictures him as a guardian cherub in Eden cast down for his pride (28:11-19), a passage some also read as a glimpse of Satan's fall.
Gog
The leader from the land of Magog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, who leads a vast army against restored Israel in the latter days and is destroyed by God (38-39). Revelation 20:8 takes up Gog and Magog for the final rebellion.
My servant David
The promised shepherd-king from David's line who will feed God's flock and reign over a united people (34:23-24; 37:24-25). The New Testament sees this promise fulfilled in Jesus, the good shepherd.

In-depth study of Ezekiel

Introduction

Ezekiel shows the glory of God in the most unexpected place: a settlement of refugees in Babylon. The prophet saw the throne of God above living creatures and wheels, ate a scroll, lay on his side for more than a year, lost his wife, and watched in a vision as the glory of the Lord left Jerusalem. Later he saw dry bones rise and a river flow from a new temple.

The book can feel strange, with its visions, sign-acts and long allegories, but its message is clear and urgent. The holy God judges sin, even among his own people. And the same God gives new life to those who have none, for the sake of his holy name.

Who wrote Ezekiel and when?

The book names its prophet as Ezekiel son of Buzi, a priest, who received visions in the land of the Chaldeans by the Chebar canal (1:3). Except for a short note in 1:2-3, it is written in the first person, and it is among the most precisely dated of the prophetic books. The years are counted from the exile of King Jehoiachin in 597 BC, when Ezekiel was deported with the leaders of Jerusalem. The thirtieth year mentioned in 1:1 is probably his age, the age at which priests began their service (Numbers 4:3).

The dated oracles

The call comes in 593 BC (1:2); the vision of the temple in 592 BC (8:1); the start of the siege in 588 BC (24:1-2); news of the fall reaches the exiles about 585 BC (33:21); the vision of the new temple comes in 573 BC (40:1); and the latest oracle, about Egypt, in 571 BC (29:17). The dates show that the book was written during the exile, and most scholars agree that it reached its final form soon after. Some think disciples arranged the material, but the voice and outlook are consistent throughout.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah

Ezekiel and Jeremiah were both from priestly families and preached in the same years, one in Babylon and the other in Jerusalem. Both condemned false prophets, both rejected the proverb about sour grapes (Jeremiah 31:29; Ezekiel 18:2), and both promised that God would give his people a new heart (Jeremiah 24:7; 31:33; Ezekiel 36:26). Jeremiah's letter to the exiles (Jeremiah 29) was addressed to the very community in which Ezekiel lived.

Literary style and structure

Ezekiel uses many forms: visions (1-3; 8-11; 37; 40-48), symbolic actions (4-5; 12; 24), allegories (15-17; 23), funeral laments (19; 27; 32) and sermons. Recurring formulas tie the book together: the word of the Lord came to me, the hand of the Lord was upon me, son of man, and above all, then you will know that I am the Lord.

Sign-acts

Ezekiel's symbolic actions are among the most dramatic in Scripture. He draws Jerusalem on a brick and stages a siege against it (4:1-3), lies on his left side 390 days and on his right side 40 days (4:4-6), eats bread made from mixed grains in rationed portions (4:9-17), shaves his head and divides the hair into thirds (5:1-4), packs an exile's bag and digs through a wall (12:1-7). When his wife dies, he does not mourn publicly (24:15-24). The prophet's own life becomes the message.

A book in three parts

  1. Judgment on Jerusalem before its fall (1-24).
  2. Oracles against the nations (25-32).
  3. Restoration after the fall (33-48).

The hinge is 33:21-22: a fugitive arrives saying that the city has been struck down, and the mouth of the prophet, silent except when God gave him a message (3:26-27), is opened. The book is also full of mirrors. The glory leaves (10-11) and returns (43); the watchman is appointed (3) and reappointed (33); the mountains of Israel are judged (6) and later blessed (36).

Ezekiel in the story of the Bible

As a priest, Ezekiel thinks in the categories of Leviticus: holy and common, clean and unclean, and the presence of God in the sanctuary. When the tabernacle and Solomon's temple were completed, the glory of the Lord filled them (Exodus 40:34-35; 1 Kings 8:10-11). Ezekiel sees that same glory leave the temple because of idolatry, a turning point in Israel's history. He mentions his contemporary Daniel as a model of righteousness and wisdom (14:14; 28:3).

After the exile, the second temple was completed in 516 BC, but the Old Testament never describes the glory filling it as it filled the first; older people even wept at how small it seemed (Ezra 3:12; Haggai 2:3). The hope of Ezekiel 43 remained open.

In the New Testament

Revelation draws on Ezekiel at many points: the four living creatures around the throne (Revelation 4:6-8), the scroll that is sweet to eat (Revelation 10:9-10), the seal on the foreheads of God's servants (Revelation 7:3), Gog and Magog (Revelation 20:8), the measured city with twelve gates named for the tribes (Revelation 21:12-16) and the river of life with trees for healing (Revelation 22:1-2). Jesus's teaching on the good shepherd (John 10:11-16) rests on Ezekiel 34, and Peter's warning that judgment begins at the household of God (1 Peter 4:17) recalls the command to begin at the sanctuary (9:6).

Ezekiel and Jesus Christ

The glory returns in a person

Ezekiel saw the glory leave the temple. John says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory (John 1:14), and Jesus called his own body the temple (John 2:19-21). Ezekiel saw on the throne a figure with the appearance of a man (1:26); the New Testament says that the glory of God shines in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6).

The good shepherd

In Ezekiel 34 God promises to seek the lost and to set over his flock one shepherd, his servant David. Jesus calls himself the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11) and says that he came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10), fulfilling both the divine shepherd and the Davidic king of the chapter.

A new heart and living water

Many readers hear Ezekiel 36:25-27 behind Jesus's words to Nicodemus about being born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5), which a teacher of Israel should have understood (John 3:10). At Pentecost the Spirit was poured out, and Paul speaks of the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5). When Jesus promised rivers of living water flowing from within believers, meaning the Spirit (John 7:37-39), many see the river of Ezekiel 47 in the background.

Interpretive challenges

What is the temple of chapters 40-48?

Some expect a literal temple to be built in a future earthly kingdom, with offerings that look back to Christ. Others read the vision as a symbolic picture of God's perfect presence among his people, fulfilled in Christ, the church and the new creation, where there is no temple because the Lord and the Lamb are its temple (Revelation 21:22). Still others see an ideal program for the returning exiles that pointed beyond itself. Those who hold the second view often note that Hebrews 10:12-18 says no further offering for sin is needed.

Is the king of Tyre a picture of Satan?

The lament in 28:11-19 describes the king as a cherub in Eden, blameless until wickedness was found in him. Many readers have seen here a glimpse of Satan's fall; others think Ezekiel uses Eden imagery poetically for a human king who thought he was a god (28:2). Both readings agree that pride leads to ruin.

Who are Gog and Magog?

Chapters 38-39 describe a ruler from the far north leading many nations against restored Israel. Some expect a literal end-time invasion; others see a symbolic picture of the final enemies of God's people, as Revelation 20:8 seems to use it. Some read the Hebrew word rosh in 38:2 as a place name and connect it to modern nations, but most translators render it chief, and such identifications remain uncertain.

Does chapter 18 contradict the Ten Commandments?

Exodus 20:5 speaks of God visiting iniquity on the children of those who hate him. Ezekiel 18 is not a contradiction but a correction of fatalism: no one is condemned for a parent's sin if he turns to God, and the law itself said that children were not to be put to death for their fathers (Deuteronomy 24:16).

Little-known facts

  • God calls Ezekiel son of man about ninety-three times; in this book the phrase simply means a mortal human being.
  • The city of Tel Aviv takes its name from Tel-abib, where Ezekiel lived (3:15), through the Hebrew title given in 1902 to a translation of a novel about a future Jewish homeland.
  • Ancient rabbis hesitated over Ezekiel because some temple laws in chapters 40-48 differ from the Torah. The Talmud says that a sage named Hananiah son of Hezekiah used three hundred jars of oil for his lamp as he worked to reconcile them.
  • The Mishnah forbade teaching the chariot vision of chapter 1 to others except a wise student who could understand on his own.
  • The Chebar canal appears in Babylonian business records from the region of Nippur, confirming the setting of the exiles' settlement.
  • The days Ezekiel lay on his sides, 390 and 40, add up to 430, which some note is the number of years Israel spent in Egypt (Exodus 12:40).

How to study Ezekiel

Ezekiel has 48 chapters; one chapter a day takes about seven weeks. A Sunday school class or small group can study it well in eight lessons, choosing key chapters and summarizing the rest.

Follow the glory

Read chapters 1, 8-11, 43 and 47 together. Tracing the glory of God from Babylon to the departure from the temple and back to the new temple gives the book its storyline.

What to look for

  • The dates at the start of sections, and where each falls before or after the fall of Jerusalem.
  • The phrase then you will know that I am the Lord, and who comes to know him in each case.
  • The sign-acts: what each one acted out and how the people reacted.
  • The contrast between hearts of stone and hearts of flesh.

Teaching it to a group

A possible series: the vision of glory (1), the watchman (3 and 33), the glory departs (8-11), turn and live (18), the shepherds (34), a new heart (36), the dry bones (37) and the river from the temple (47). The sign-acts and the dry bones work well with youth groups, while the allegories of chapters 16 and 23 contain strong sexual imagery and are better handled with adults. Ask the group where they see dry bones today, what it means that God acts for the sake of his name, and how Jesus fulfills the shepherd of chapter 34.

Ezekiel chapter by chapter

Every chapter of Ezekiel with a summary, key verses explained, themes, people, questions with answers and application.

Frequently asked questions about Ezekiel

Who wrote the book of Ezekiel?

The book presents itself as the work of Ezekiel son of Buzi, a priest among the exiles in Babylon (1:3). Almost all of it is written in the first person, with precise dates, and Jewish and Christian tradition has always attributed it to him. Some scholars think his disciples helped arrange the oracles, but the book's consistent style and dating point to the prophet himself.

When was Ezekiel written?

The oracles are dated from the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's exile, 593 BC (1:2), to the twenty-seventh year, 571 BC (29:17). Ezekiel had been taken to Babylon in 597 BC, so the whole book comes from the exile, and it was probably completed shortly after his last prophecy.

What is the main message of Ezekiel?

God is holy and sovereign. Because Judah defiled his temple with idols and filled the land with violence, he let Jerusalem fall and his glory depart. But for the sake of his holy name he would restore his people, give them a new heart and his Spirit, and dwell among them forever, so that all would know that he is the Lord.

How many chapters does Ezekiel have and how is it organized?

Ezekiel has 48 chapters, arranged mostly in chronological order. Chapters 1-24 announce judgment on Jerusalem before its fall; 25-32 are oracles against seven nations; 33-48 proclaim restoration after the fall, including the dry bones (37), Gog and Magog (38-39) and the vision of the new temple (40-48).

What does the valley of dry bones mean?

In chapter 37 the bones stand for the exiles, who said that their hope was lost and they were cut off (37:11). God promises to open their graves, bring them back to their land and put his Spirit in them. The vision is first about Israel's national restoration; Christians also see in it God's power to give spiritual life and a foreshadowing of the resurrection.

What is the temple of Ezekiel 40-48?

It is a detailed vision of a renewed temple, priesthood and land, received in 573 BC. Some interpreters expect a literal temple in a future earthly kingdom; others read it as a symbolic picture of God's perfect presence among his people, fulfilled in Christ, the church and the new creation, where the Lord and the Lamb are the temple (Revelation 21:22). Both views agree that its goal is God dwelling with his people.

Who are Gog and Magog in Ezekiel?

In chapters 38-39 Gog is a ruler from the land of Magog, in the far north, who leads many nations against restored Israel and is defeated by God. Some expect a future end-time invasion; others see a symbolic picture of the last enemies of God's people. Revelation 20:8 uses Gog and Magog for the nations gathered in the final rebellion. Attempts to tie the names to specific modern countries rest on uncertain evidence.

Why is Ezekiel called son of man?

In Ezekiel the phrase, used more than ninety times, means human being or mortal. It stresses the distance between the prophet and the glorious God who speaks to him. When Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, he draws mainly on Daniel 7:13, where one like a son of man receives an everlasting kingdom.

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