Ezekiel

About Ezekiel

Ezekiel spoke to Jews already deported to Babylon, using strange and vivid visions, from God's throne on wheels to a valley of dry bones coming back to life. He explains that Jerusalem fell because the people's hearts had turned away, yet God's glory is not chained to one city. Then the book pivots to hope: a new heart, God's own Spirit within His people, and a restored temple. In the big story, Ezekiel shows that exile is not the end, because God Himself will remake His people from the inside out.

Written by

The book presents the visions of Ezekiel, a priest turned prophet among the exiles in Babylon, and most scholars accept that its core goes back to him.

When

Ezekiel's carefully dated messages run from about 593 to 571 BC, during the Babylonian exile.

Themes

• God's glory everywhere
• A new heart and new spirit
• Death to resurrection
• God as the true shepherd
• Restored worship

Key verses

• Ezekiel 36:26-27A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
• Ezekiel 37:4-5Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: