Ezekiel (God will strengthen), son of Buzi, was a priest carried captive with other nobles by Nebuchadnezzar (B.C. 599), before the destruction of Jerusalem. He was settled with a Jewish colony on the banks of the Chebar (Ehabut), 200 miles N. of Babylon, where he saw visions. He only lived twenty-seven years after, and did not begin to prophesy till the fifth year of his exile.

His prophecies may be divided into two parts. First, those spoken before the destruction of Jerusalem, to disabuse the people of all false hopes of succour from Egypt, instilling into them the certainty of God's vengeance, and exhorting them to sincere repentance. The Second part is full of consolation, exciting hope of future restoration on their true repentance, and the final glory of God's people in a renovated land and a new Jerusalem, with the outpouring of God's blessings upon them, and the future resurrection of the flesh. Between these two parts is an intervening portion, denouncing God's judgment on the seven heathen nations around them. This was written between the commencement of Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem, and the news of its fall.

This book contains many visions, parables, and proverbs. The illustrations are often taken from buildings and their ornaments, shewing the writer to have been more familiar with a city than with rural life. He mentions Daniel by name (xxviii. 3); and as they were in exile together, they were probably well known to each other.

Summary. 1. Ezekiel's call (i.—iii. 15). 2. The general carrying out of the commission (iii. 16— vii.). 3. The rejection of the people, because of their idolatrous worship (viii.—xi.). 4. The sins of the age rebuked in detail (xii.—xix.). 5. The nature of the judgment, and the guilt which caused it (xx.—xxiii.). 6. The meaning of the now commencing punishment (xxiv.). 7. God's judgment denounced on seven heathen nations (xxv.—xxxii.). 8. Prophecies, after the destruction of Jerusalem, concerning the future condition of Israel (tfxxiii.—xxxix.). 9. The glorious consummation (xl.—xlviii.).

Hebrew tradition asserts that Jeremiah and Ezekiel exchanged writings in their lifetime, so that those of the former were read in Babylon, and those of the latter in Jerusalem. There are many similarities in the two books which favour this supposition,—especially as the character of the two writers is so different, that a resemblance in their writings would seem to be due to a mutual interchange of thoughts.

Canonicity. The great obscurity of the book (from its allegorical form), and apparent discrepancy between it and the Pentateuch (cp. xviii. 20, and Ex. xx. 5), led the Jews to place it among "the Treasures," which no one might read before the age of thirty; and, for the same reason, the Sanhedrin hesitated to give it a place among the Canonical books of the prophets, for public reading in the synagogue. But on no other ground has its Canonicity been disputed, nor has its authenticity teen seriously attacked.

There are no direct quotations from it in the New Testament, though in the Revelation there are several allusions and parallel passages, which shew that it was known to the writer.