Where it fits

Ezekiel is the 26th book of the Bible, with 48 chapters. Ezekiel was a priest taken to Babylon with King Jehoiachin and thousands of others in 597 BC, and he was called as a prophet there, by the Kebar canal, about 593 BC (1:1–3). His ministry lasted more than 20 years. His book is written mostly in the first person and carefully dated. Read straight through, it takes about three hours.

The prophet and his message

The book begins with a vision that is difficult to picture: a windstorm, a fiery cloud, four winged living creatures, wheels within wheels covered with eyes, and above them a throne with a figure like a man, glowing like fire (1). Ezekiel falls on his face. It is the glory of the LORD, and it comes to him in Babylon, far from the temple (1:28). God commissions him as a watchman for Israel (2–3). Ezekiel then acts out messages, lying on his side, building a model of a siege, and packing a bag as if for exile (4–5, 12). Another vision shows idolatry inside the temple and the glory of God leaving it (8–11). In 586 BC, word arrives that Jerusalem has fallen (33:21).

After the fall, Ezekiel's message turns to hope. God, the true shepherd, will rescue his scattered sheep from bad shepherds and care for them himself (34). He will give his people a new heart and put his Spirit within them (36:26–27). In a valley of dry bones, Ezekiel prophesies and sees the bones come together and breathe, a picture of Israel's restoration (37). The book ends with a long vision of a new temple and a river flowing from it, bringing life wherever it goes (40–48), and the city's new name: “The LORD is there” (48:35).

Three ideas to hold on to

1. God's glory is not confined to a place. God appears to Ezekiel in Babylon, showing that his presence isn't trapped in the temple or the land.
2. Each person is responsible before God. Ezekiel 18 insists that people aren't condemned for their parents' sins, and that God takes no pleasure in anyone's death but wants them to turn and live (18:20–23, 32).
3. God makes dead things live. God promises a new heart and his Spirit (36:26–27), and the dry bones come to life (37:1–14).

Passages people ask about

• Ezekiel 1. The vision of God's glory.
• Ezekiel 16. A graphic allegory of Jerusalem as an unfaithful wife. Its language is shocking, and it is meant to be, but it ends with God's promise of an everlasting covenant (16:60). Read with care.
• Ezekiel 34. God as the shepherd who searches for his lost sheep.
• Ezekiel 37:1–14. The valley of dry bones.
• Ezekiel 40–48. The vision of a new temple. Christians have read it as a literal temple still to come, as a symbol of God's presence among his people, or as fulfilled in Christ and the church, and the question is still debated.

How it points to Jesus

Ezekiel's promises of a shepherd, a new heart, and God's Spirit are taken up by Jesus. In Ezekiel 34, God says he will set one shepherd over his sheep, his servant David (34:23), and Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd (John 10:11). Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5–8), recalling Ezekiel 36:25–27. The river flowing from the temple (47) echoes Jesus' offer of living water (John 7:37–39) and the river in Revelation 22:1–2, and the final line, “The LORD is there,” is fulfilled in the new Jerusalem, where God lives with his people (Revelation 21:3).

A common misunderstanding

Ezekiel's visions are often treated as a puzzle of strange images or even as a record of alien technology. The images are strange because the vision is of the unseen glory of God, which no picture can contain. The point isn't the machinery but the message: God shows up in Babylon. The people thought he was gone, tied to a building that had been destroyed. He goes where his people go.