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“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”
(Romans
8:2)
Ezekiel
– Hebrew Prophet – Britannica
Ezekiel
The prophet Ezekiel.
Ezekiel (flourished 6th century BC) was a prophet-priest of
ancient Israel and the subject and in part the author of an Old Testament book
that bears his name. Ezekiel’s early oracles (from c. 592) in Jerusalem were
pronouncements of violence and destruction; his later statements addressed the
hopes of the Israelites exiled in Babylon. The faith of Ezekiel in the ultimate
establishment of a new covenant between God and the people of Israel has had
profound influence on the postexilic reconstruction and reorganization of
Judaism.
Ezekiel’s ministry was conducted in Jerusalem and Babylon
in the first three decades of the 6th century BC. For Ezekiel and his people,
these years were bitter ones because the remnant of the Israelite domain, the
little state of Judah, was eliminated by the rising Babylonian empire under
Nebuchadrezzar (reigned 605–562 BC). Jerusalem surrendered in 597 BC. Israelite
resistance was nevertheless renewed, and in 587–586 the city was destroyed
after a lengthy siege. In both debacles, and indeed again in 582, large numbers
from the best elements of the surviving population were forcibly deported to
Babylonia.
Before the first surrender of Jerusalem, Ezekiel was a
functioning priest probably attached to the Jerusalem Temple staff. He was
among those deported in 597 to Babylonia, where he was located at Tel-abib on
the Kebar canal (near Nippur). It is evident that he was, among his fellow
exiles, a person of uncommon stature. Ezekiel’s religious call came in July 592
when he had a vision of the “throne-chariot” of God. He subsequently prophesied
until 585 and then is not heard of again until 572. His latest datable
utterance can be dated about 570 BC, 22 years after his first.
These two periods of prophesying, separated by 13 years,
represent various emphases in Ezekiel’s message. His earlier oracles to the
Jews in Palestine were pronouncements of God’s judgment on a sinful nation for
its apostasy. Ezekiel said that Judah was guiltier than Israel had been and
that Jerusalem would fall to Nebuchadrezzar and its inhabitants would be killed
or exiled. According to him, Judah trusted in foreign gods and foreign
alliances, and Jerusalem was a city full of injustice. Pagan rites abounded in
the courts of the Temple.
After the fall of Jerusalem and his period of silence, Ezekiel
now addressed himself more pointedly to the exiles and sought to direct their
hopes for the restoration of their nation. His theme changed from the harsh
judgment of God to the promise of the future. Ezekiel prophesied that the
exiles from both Judah and Israel would return to Palestine, leaving none in
the Diaspora. In the imminent new age a new covenant would be made with the
restored house of Israel, to whom God would give a new spirit and a new heart.
The restoration would be an act of divine grace, for the sake of God’s name.
Ezekiel’s prophecies conclude with a vision of a restored Temple in Jerusalem.
The Temple’s form of worship would be reestablished in Israel, and each of the
ancient tribes would receive appropriate allotments of land. In contrast to
those hoping for national restoration under a Davidic king, Ezekiel envisaged a
theocratic community revolving around the Temple and its cult as the nexus of
the restored Jewish state.
More than any of the classical biblical prophets, Ezekiel was
given to symbolic actions, strange visions, and even trances (although it is
quite gratuitous to deduce from these, and from his words “I fell upon my face”
[1:28], that he was a cataleptic). He eats a scroll on which words of prophecy
are written, in order to symbolize his appropriation of the message (3:1–3). He
lies down for an extended time to symbolize Israel’s punishment (4:4ff). He is
apparently struck dumb on one occasion for an unspecified length of time
(3:26). As other prophets have done before him, he sees the God-to-People
relationship as analogous to that of husband to unfaithful wife and therefore
understands the collapse of the life of Judah as a judgment for essential
infidelity.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia
Britannica.
CITATION INFORMATION
ARTICLE TITLE: Ezekiel
WEBSITE NAME: Encyclopaedia Britannica
PUBLISHER: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
DATE PUBLISHED: 19 June 2026
URL:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ezekiel-Hebrew-prophet
ACCESS DATE: August 11, 2026