Ezekiel

Ezekiel was taken to Babylon as a young man in the 597 BCE deportation alongside Jehoiachin. At thirty — the age Levitical priests traditionally entered service — he received his prophetic call in the most visually intense theophany in the Hebrew Bible: the vision of the divine chariot-throne with its four living creatures, its wheels within wheels, and the glory of the LORD above it (Ezek 1). Ezekiel's ministry divided into three periods: (1) before Jerusalem's fall (593-587 BCE), prophesying the city's inevitable destruction despite false prophets' assurances; (2) at the time of the fall (587-585), confirming the judgment; (3) after the fall (585-570), pivoting to hope and restoration. The dramatic pivot corresponds to his wife's death (Ezek 24), which he was forbidden to mourn publicly as a prophetic sign. Ezekiel's prophetic actions were dramatic and personally costly: lying on his side for 390 days symbolizing Israel's punishment, baking bread over dung, shaving his head with a sword, dramatizing siege and exile with props. His oracles are rich in visions — the four living creatures, the glory departing from the temple, the valley of dry bones (Ezek 37), the prophetic rebuke of Israel's shepherds (34, feeding directly into Jesus's "I am the good shepherd"), and the restored temple with living water flowing from it (Ezek 40-48). Ezekiel's new covenant imagery parallels Jeremiah's: God will give a new heart and a new spirit (Ezek 36:26); he will take out the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. The dry bones vision is the classic OT image of resurrection — the prophetic word and the divine breath together reanimating the dead.