Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Book Overview - Ezekiel

by John Dummelow

Introduction

1. History of Ezekiel's Times. Ezekiel was preeminently a prophet of the Captivity of Judah, but the allusions in his book go back over the last half-century of the existence of the Jewish kindgom.

Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt. The kings of Judah had long been vassals of Assyria, but in the latter half of the 7th cent. b.c. the power of that empire was declining. Soon after 630 b.c. Western Asia was invaded by the Scythians—hordes of northern barbarians who penetrated to the borders of Egypt. Their irruption is not directly mentioned in Scripture, but it made a strong and terrifying impression, of which traces are found in both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and the possibility of its recurrence was long present to men's minds. About 625 b.c. Babylon, hitherto a tributary of Assyria, became independent under Nabopolassar, and about 607 b.c. Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, fell before Nabopolassar and his allies. The supremacy of the E. was thus transferred to Babylon. When Nineveh fell, Pharaoh-Necho of Egypt made himself temporarily master of Palestine, but in 605 b.c. he was defeated at Carchemish by Nebuchadrezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, who immediately succeeded his father as king of Babylon and ruler of all Western Asia.

The last kings of Judah. The reign of Josiah (639-608 b.c.) was signalised by the discovery of the Book of the Law in the Temple (621 b.c.), and by the great reformation that followed it. Josiah was slain in battle at Megiddo, when attempting to oppose the northward march of Pharaoh-Necho (608 b.c.). The people of Judah placed Shallum (generally known as Jehoahaz), Josiah's youngest son, on the throne, but their choice did not satisfy Pharaoh-Necho, who deposed Shallum, and carried him captive to Egypt, putting Jehoiakim, another son of Josiah, in his place. Jehoiakim reigned as a vassal of Egypt for four years, but Nebuchadrezzar's victory at Carchemish made him a subject of Babylon. For three years longer he was loyal to Nebuchadrezzar, but at last he began to intrigue again with Egypt. He died in 597 b.c. before Nebuchadrezzar could punish his unfaithfulness, but the blow fell on his son and successor, Jehoiachin, who was deposed after a reign of three months, and carried captive to Babylon, along with the flower of the nobility and the best of the craftsmen of the land. This was the first captivity (597 b.c.). Nebuchadrezzar, however, spared the kingdom of Judah a little longer, and set Zedekiah, a third son of Josiah, on the throne. But Zedekiah proved a weak ruler, unable to resist the anti-Babylonian party in Judah. He too was led into intrigue with Egypt, and revolt against Babylon. Nebuchadrezzar sent an army against Jerusalem. The siege began on the tenth day of the tenth month of Zedekiah's ninth year; and after being temporarily raised owing to the approach of an Egyptian army, was resumed, and ended on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah's eleventh year. The king fled, but was captured, had his eyes put out, and was taken to Babylon. A month later Jerusalem was burnt, and the bulk of the people of Judah carried into exile. This was the second captivity (586 b.c.).

After the Second Captivity. Gedaliah, a Jewish noble, was made Babylonian Governor of Palestine, but after three months he was murdered, at the instigation of the king of Ammon, by a noble of the anti-Babylonian faction. The Jewish leaders of Gedaliah's party fled with their followers into Egypt. It was probably to avenge the murder of Gedaliah that a further deportation of Jews to Babylon took place five years later (Jeremiah 52:30). This was the third captivity (581 b.c.).

Babylon, Tyre, and Egypt. Tyre as well as Judah revolted against Nebuchadrezzar, and was besieged by him for thirteen years from the seventh year of his reign (597-584 b.c.). In his thirty-seventh year (567 b.c.) Nebuchadrezzar was engaged in a campaign against Egypt.

2. Ezekiel's personal history. Ezekiel ('God strengthens,' or 'God is strong'), the son of Buzi, was a priest who was carried to Babylon at the first captivity (597 b.c.). This is the point from which the dates in his book are reckoned. Nothing is known of his age at the time of his transportation, or of his previous history. In the fifth year of his captivity (592 b.c.) he was called and consecrated to the work of a prophet by a remarkable vision with which the book opens, and he carried on his ministry at intervals for twenty-two years, the latest date in the book being the twenty-seventh year of the captivity (570 b.c.). Our knowledge of his personal career is very meagre. He lived in a house of his own, among a colony of his fellow exiles, who were settled at a place called Tel-abib. He was married, and his wife died suddenly on the very day when the siege of Jerusalem began.

3. Ezekiel's Audience. This consisted outwardly of the exiles at Tel-abib, who were an organised community with 'elders' at their head. They were at first opposed to Ezekiel, and were inclined to believe the false prophets who held out hopes of a speedy return to their own land (Jeremiah 29:8-9). This antagonism prevented him from speaking in public, but the elders visited him from time to time in his house. After the fulfilment of his earlier prophecies in the fall of Jerusalem, the attitude of the exiles to the prophet became more favourable. Though living in Babylonia EzeMel's chief concern was with the fate of Jerusalem, and he took the deepest interest in all that was happening in Palestine. The prophecies spoken to the elders and other exiles at Tel-abib were really addressed to the whole people of Israel whom they represented. At times EzeMel makes a distinction between the exiles and their brethren in Palestine, and in these cases his verdict is in favour of the former.

4. The Book of Ezekiel falls into three well-marked divisions. The first (Ezekiel 1-24) predicts the fall of Jerusalem as the necessary consequence of Israel's sin. The second (Ezekiel 25-32) deals with God's judgments on the surrounding nations. The third (Ezekiel 33-48) describes the restoration of Israel and the establishment of the perfect kingdom of God. There is no doubt as to the unity and authenticity of the book, though a few passages here and there have been thought to be duplicates of the same prophecy. The Hebrew text, however, has become obscure in some places through the mistakes of transcribers, and the true sense has to be sought either in ancient translations like the LXX, which frequently give a better meaning, or in simple and obvious corrections. The prophecies of EzeMel have a peculiar style and character, due to the prophet's special mental qualities. The most marked of these qualities was his powerful imagination, which not only displayed itself in strange and weird conceptions, but wrought these out with great minuteness of detail, akin to what we find in Dante. Three forms of prophecy are specially characteristic of EzeMel. We have symbolic actions, in which the truths to be taught are practically illustrated; allegories, which present the subjects in hand under elaborate figures; and visions, in which material emblems stand out spontaneously before the prophet's mind. It is possible that some of the symbolic actions described were not actually performed. In Ezekiel 24:3 we see that the symbolic action and the allegory cannot be sharply, distinguished. The visions, too, have been supposed by some to be merely allegories thrown into a peculiar literary form, but there is no reason to doubt that they were real experiences, though some of the details may have been worked out more fully when the visions were committed to writing.